Buffalo Bill (The Hon. William F. Cody)

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BUFFALO

am

■v.*qo*

BILL”

*

“BUFFALO BILL”

(THE HON. WILLIAM F; CODY)

RIFLE AND REVOLVER SHOT; PONY EXPRESS
RIDER; TEAMSTER; BUFFALO HUNTER;
GUIDE AND SCOUT

% JfuII ILcoimt of (ns ^btanturous pF

WITH THE ORIGIN OF

HIS “WILD WEST” SHOW

BY

HENRY LLEWELLYN WILLIAMS

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

BROADWAY. LUDGATE HILL

GLASGOW AND NEW YORK
1887

LONDON:

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITRFB1ARS.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I.—THE PIONEER.—A BOYISH EXPLOIT.—THE FIRST

FATAL SHOT ..7

II.—THE EMIGRANT TRAIN.—THE BOY GUIDE.—LIFE

AT THE NEW PURCHASE.—JUVENILE DUEL . 20

III. —INDIAN. TRADING. — HORSE CATCHING. — THE

TRIAL AT FANCY SHOOTING.—THE CAPTURE
OF THE BLACK STALLION.28

IV. —THE . BORDER RUFFIANS.—MAKING FREE WITH

PROPERTY IN THE FREE STATE . * . . . 38

V. —THE RISING HERO WHIPPED.—SCHOOL AGAIN.—

SECOND ATTACK OF CALF-LOVE.—A ONE SIDED
DUEL.—“BULL-WHACKING” .... 43

VI. —A BORDER RAID. — THE SUPPRESSION OF A

“NIGGER WORSHIPPER.”—THE FIRST RAISING

OF HAIR.48:

VII.—“WILD BILL.”—BUFFALO HUNTING AND BUFFALO
RIDING.—A DUEL A L’AMERICAINE.—CAPTURED
BY “THE DESTROYING ANGELS” . . -55

VIII.—“ STANDING OFF ” THE REDMEN. — COOLNESS
. UNDER .FIRE,—THE BQRDER MENU IN A CLOSE

FIX.—SATAN’S USEFUL END.66

IX.—TRAPPING ON THE REPUBLICAN RIVER.—THE
BROKEN LEG.— ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.—

. THE SIOUX.—THE PIKE’S PEAK GOLD-RUSH.—

THE DUEL FOR THE GOLD MINE ... 74

vi

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

X.—FIRST EXPERIENCE AS A GUIDE—THE SUSPICIOUS
CONDUCTOR.—THE EXCHANGE OF SHOTS WITH
A ROAD AGENT.—THE RENEGADE UNVEILED.

—THE NEW CAPTAIN OF SCOUTS . . . . 83

XI.—THE PONY EXPRESS.—SLADE “THE SLAYER.”—
QUICK WORK. — HOT WORK. — THE CLAUDE
DUVAL OF THE WEST.—SAVING THE COACH-

LIGHTNING DRIVING. 90

XII.—OVERLAND STAGE-COACH DRIVING.—A TRAGIC
AND A LUDICROUS ADVENTURE.—THE ROAD-
AGENTS CONFOUNDED . . ... . . I07

XIII. —THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT.—BUFFALO RUN¬

NING. — OLD “ BRIGHAM.” — THE TRIAL AT
MEAT-MAKING.—WILL COMSTOCK . . . 115

XIV. —THE WAR. — SCOUTING. — “ THE LONGHAIRED

SCOUT.”—WHIPPING THE SIOUX SINGLE-HANDED 126

XV.—SCOUTING.—“ CODY’S RIDE.”—THE EXASPERATING
MULE.—BUCKSKIN JOE’S LAST GALLOP.—THE
DUEL WITH YELLOW HAND . . . . 141

XVI.—BUFFALO BILL ON THE STAGE.—“ NED BUNT¬
LINE.”— THE HERO IN PROPRIA PERSONA.—
“TEXAS JACK” AS A PLAYER.—“THE WILD

WEST SHOW” PROJECTED AND REALISED . . 165

XVII.—THE'DEAD WOOD COACH.—A NOTABLE ATTACK.—
“CALAMITY SAL’S” RESCUE.—THE ABANDONED

WAIF IN CLOVER.176

XVIII.—A CURIOUS AND NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT.—“ THE
WILD WEST COMBINATION” SHOW IN THE
EASTERN STATES. — ITS CHARACTERS AND
FEATURES.—ITS RECEPTION IN ENGLAND . 187

BUFFALO BILL.”

CHAPTER I.

THE PIONEER.-A BOYISH EXPLOIT.-THE FIRST

FATAL SHOT.

After having for a long period acquiesced
in the pictures of the noble red Indian and his
prairie and woodland scenes, with which Feni-
more Cooper and his imitators made us familiar,
the Old World has grown apt to believe with
as much whole-hearted credulity in the new
presentment by present-day tourists in the
Western United States. These rightly show
the boundless sea of verdure of “ The Prairie ”
cut up into gigantic farms, tilled by steam and
electricity, and armies of men ; the mysterious
Lone Mountains of Mayne Reid swarming with
miners, Chinese and “ Digger ” Indians, and
burrowed with mines, in the depths of which

BUFFALO BILL .”

magnificent modern machinery toils like the
buried Cyclops; the great river of Gerstaecker’s
romances a mere highway for steam-tugs towing
miles of barges; the beaten tracks of multi¬
tudinous buffalo herds raked by the bone-
hunter that knife handles of “ the best African
ivory ” may be sold cheaply in European
marts; the plains where thousands of wild
horses coursed, crossed by their degenerate
offspring, hauling in harness the emigrants’
waggons—and, most depressing blow to former
enthusiasm, no more an Uncas or a Delaware,
but wretched copper-skin outcasts cowering at
the railway station to have gratis transportation
over the hunting grounds of their forefathers to
the western substitute for a workhouse and a
soup-kitchen, the Indian agency and the model
farm.

Nevertheless, the West and the South-west
of North America still contain immense tracts
where romance may long live, and, in the
career of one of the sons of those regions,
which is now to be placed before the reader,
there will be seen much to verify the saying of
Georges Sand: “ There are lives which are
more like romance than romance itself.”

■IN THE WILD WEST.’

William Frederick Cody was born in Scott
County, State of Iowa, in 1843. His father was
one of the pioneers to that part of the United
States, where scenes of dangers and hardships
were common environments to the log cabin of
the settler.

Before Will was nine years of age he figured
prominently in an incident which gained him a
name among men who are apt to rate physical
gifts above any others.

The school was five miles from his father’s
house, and, therefore, the lad rode there and
back and home to dinner upon a pony of his
own. The ponies of that region are the but
partially broken mustangs, famous for all natu¬
ral and acquired equine vices; this one, in par¬
ticular, was a vicious, tricky beast which the
neighbours foretold would be the young rider’s
death some day. There was a prospect of a
double tragedy, generally, as young Cody was
wont to take up on the crupper of this Buce¬
phalus a playmate who was by a couple of years
his senior. This David Dunn was son of so
poor a settler that there was no horse at home
at his disposal; out West there is almost the
same scorn for a person who goes even a little

BUFFALO BILL .”

distance on foot as in Spain or Mexico or the
Southern States before the great Civil War re¬
duced the descendants of the cavaliers to the
universal and proverbial “ Shanks’ mare.”

Poor as the boys were as a mouthful for the
lawless folk who might be met on the road, the
horse was still a tempting bait, and the youths
went armed to defend their steed. Cody,
especially, was happy in the possession of a
revolver, one of the old-pattern Colts, with the
barrels revolving, the ancient “ coffee-mill ” or
“pepper-box,” laughed at all over the West in
the present day, but, in its time, a marvel to
those who only knew of double-barrel pistols at
the most. Will had already the love for
weapons which characterizes the destined
sharpshooter, and it was noticed that none of
his playthings was prized like this wondrous
piece of fire-arms mechanism.

One of these days, when returning from
school on the pony, it was frightened by the
approach of a storm, and, pulling out its
hobbling-rope peg, or lariat- pin, it scampered
away over the prairie like the “ Rascal ” it was
prophetically called. It is worse than a wild-
goose chase to follow a runaway mustang, a

IN THE WILD WEST.”

proof of which we shall have to furnish much
later on in our record of William Cody, in a
mishap which occurred to himself.

But the pursuit was rendered more than
hopeless by the storm threatening a violent
rush, as is only too common in a country where
the “ Northers ” rush down from the Bay of
Hudson or the Rocky Mountains, gaining
power at every hundred miles.

The distressed and terrified urchins ran off
the road, at best merely an infrequently travelled
trail, and took shelter in the only refuge that
presented itself. This was an abandoned log-
hut, sure to be unoccupied, even under the
pressure of a tempest, as it was said to be
haunted. Among populations of imperfectly-
educated people, superstition is prevalent, and
the training of the young falls too often into
the hands of servants and labourers of low
degree in intellectual enlightenment. Our two
boys hastened to this ill-omened place out of
mutual bravado rather than from fear of a
shower which would little injure their home-
spun clothes.

The cabin stood in the midst of some thick
woods, a distance away from the track, and

12 “BUFFALO BILL.”

looked melancholy, and fully in harmony with
the legend. It was to the effect that an un¬
known murderer or murderers had destroyed
the whole family of one Foster Beal, its head,
his two sons, and “the women folks and girl
creatures.” Since six years the mystery of this
“ one fell swoop” slaying “ the chickens, sire,
and dam,” had never been revealed, and the
shadow about the dwelling caused everybody
to keep remote.

At least the pair might reasonably rely on
not being disturbed by earthly visitors, and so
they entered the cabin by an open window, a
mere airhole, which served as an embrasure
for musketry in event of an attack, and they
huddled together inside, looking out at the
storm with an intensity due greatly to the
reverse of desire to peer round at the deserted,
uncanny interior.

Before the storm-burst was quite overhead,
they saw three or four horsemen, dimly outlined
on the deep black cloud, coming up in that very
direction at a gallop. There could be as little
doubt that they were coming to the haunted cabin
for cover as that they were members of a gang
of horse-thieves, who had won a miserable renown

IN THE WILD WEST.'

13

in the country. It was not possible for the boys
to leave the cabin by door or window without
being seen; and, as the only alternative, they
climbed up a notched pole, the primitive ladder
common in the West, from the Mexican silver
mines contemporary with the Spanish invader
to the two-storey fur-stores of the Alaska
hunters. Thus they reached the low upper-
storey of the cabin, where^hay and other pro-
vender were formerly stored, and where starved
vermin were now harboured. There they lay
down, smothering the inclination to cough and
sneeze from the dust they raised, to peep below
through cracks of the unfastened, loosely laid
boards.

Meanwhile, the riders had rushed up, pulled
in their horses with the abruptness characteris¬
ing Western equestrianism, and alighted. One
of the four seemed to know the spot, for he
directed them where to “rope out” their animals
to pins in the ground at the end of their lariats
(la riata ), after unsaddling them. Then all
entered the ruin by the window used by the
lads. They tore down pieces of the plank¬
lining, and had kindled a fire on the hearth
when the storm broke furiously. For a time,

14

BUFFALO BILL

its noise and the rattling of the house under its
pressure, prevented any conversation; but as
soon as its violence had somewhat abated, the
fellows raised their voices, seemingly to dispel
the gloom, mental and material, of the haunted
habitation.

Over the meal for which eatables were pro¬
vided from their saddle-bags, and amid the
garrulity inspired by the whiskey which they
copiously drank, the one who had shown famili¬
arity with the cabin, avowed his grounds for
that knowledge.

I n coarse, feelingless language, which deepened
the horror of the tale, he related how he and a
former gang had stormed the home and slain
its tenants. The boyish listeners shuddered in
their overhead covert, but what was the feeling
of Will Cody when he heard the callous ruffian
propose that the next victim of the league
should be his (Cody’s) father.

“ That’s the ticket, pardners,” said this
scoundrel. “ Old Cody’s ranch ! I tell you
what, he’s a thriving man—no drinking, no
going out on the loose—a stiddy, saving settler
—he’s got the gold dust, for certain sure.”

The idea appeared agreeable and feasible,

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

'5

and the voices lowered in debate on the plan of
operation. The eavesdroppers were more and
more horrified, and David was far from recover¬
ing some control as speedily as his playmate,
who was the first to speak, saying :

“ Dave, something’s got to be done, and
mighty quick. Look here, you must let your
folks at home know what these beauties are
carrying on. You see, there’s a sashless window,
under that shutter.”

There was an opening, practicable for a boy,
and its covering was readily and noiselessly
removed from its rusty nails. Dunn, who
yielded in all respects to his stronger-nerved
companion’s dictates, glided out feet foremost,
hung for a moment to receive final instructions,
and dropped safely to the ground. Thence he
was to go home as the nearest point for assist¬
ance, and acquaint his father with young
Cody’s predicament.

The latter had a repeating pistol, it is true,
and he knew how to use it, but this was the
first time when he was set face to face with
desperate men who had already confessed to
murders scarcely less cold-blooded than the
immolation of the Beal family.

“BUFFALO BILL .”

16

In half an hour after David Dunn had taken
his departure the heavy rain dwindled to a
harmless shower, and the solitary watcher saw
them rise to prepare for their dread journey
with a goal so sinister for those dear to him.

From the hole in the ceiling Will Cody
commanded both the door and the window, and
levelling his pistol, he shouted in the roughest
voice he could assume, despite his very natural
emotion:

“ Hold ! I have you covered. He’s a dead
man who moves, with me having ‘ the drop ’ on
him.”

The men of the West have imbibed much of
the aborigine’s idea of the folly of throwing away
a life for any but a substantial personal gain.
The Californian miner’s reply to the life-assur¬
ance agent fairly expresses this sentiment. He
said : “ I cannot see the gain in an investment
where a man has to die to realise.” Conse¬
quently, the four men stood spellbound for a
time, the leader falling to the rear where he
tried to draw his pistol unperceived, but the
boy saw the barrel gleam in the firelight and,
fortunately aiming well, shot him through the
heart He fell dead whilst the image of the

“IN THE WILD WEST.'’

17

flash lingered on the outlaws’ eye. They
paused even more like statues than before, and
only one found voice to inquire :

“ I say, pard. (partner), who may you be ? ”

But Cody was afraid to speak lest the quality
of his tone should betray his youth and agita¬
tion. So they heard nothing, and could see
only the six holes in the revolver-barrels
peeping over the edge of the trap-hole, held
in an apparently unshaking hand. They
crouched back with their dead brother stretched
at their feet, all in the full glare of the
fire, but the unknown slayer in impenetrable
darkness.

The time seemed interminable. The silence
was broken now and then by challenges to the
watcher above, but never came an answer.
They suggested among one another to “ man a
rush ” for the door, but its fastenings might
hold so long as to offer them as targets to the
unseen marksman, and they dared not run the
risk after the evidence of his skill.

To both sides, in this singular “fix,” no
doubt the minutes seemed hours, but not an
hour and a half had actually elapsed since

“ BUFFALO BILL.'

18

David Dunn’s flight before horses were heard
without. The boy had had the cunning to ride
away on one of the bandits’ horses, and he
brought the succour thus speedily.

The three men had no time to face the new
enemy before several gun-muzzles were thrust
in between the logs, where the mud had fallen
out, and a stern voice shouted :—

“ Boys, you are our ‘ meat ’.”

The door was burst in, and ten or twelve
settlers leaped in at the opening with a cheer
which was music to the youth overhead. Far¬
mer Dunn was at the front of them.

Overpowered and between two fires, the
border ruffians surrendered without a blow.
They were recognized as old offenders in horse-
thieving—the most heinous of crimes on the
frontier, to say nothing of others. Judge
Lynch organised his court, and the trio were
found guilty and used as decorations for trees
before the haunted house where, it is to be
hoped, the avenged spirits were “ laid.”

Both the boys were heartily praised, but
young Cody most, for not only was his “ grit ”
proven, but he had “ killed his man.”

IN THE WILD WEST 1 ”

19

Lest the authenticity of this early exploit be
demurred at, let us hasten to say it is recorded
by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, U.S.A., who
claims to have shared the blanket and camp¬
fire of our hero himself.

CHAPTER II.

THE EMIGRANT TRAIN.-TIIE BOY GUIDE.—LIFE

AT THE NEW PURCHASE.—JUVENILE DUEL.

Shortly after this striking episode of life
on the extremes of civilisation, Mr. Cody, Sr.,
determined to break up his home and obey the
wondrously general impulse to “go West.”
In most small towns of the Eastern seaboard,
there will be found two portions of the ceme¬
tery ; in the one, trim, tidy, flower-adorned, the
immediate predecessors of the townsfolk; in
the other, neglected and unkept, the fore-fathers
sleep, of whose name not a single bearer has
been known thereabouts for two generations :
all had “ gone West.”

The little train of the Codies consisted of
two large waggons with tilts, drawn by three
pair of mules and horses to each ; one carried
the children, the other the household effects.
These vehicles, by the rude muse of the wilder-

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 21

ness, are called “ prairie schooners,” not merely
because they are the ships of that desert, but
because, at a distance, the white canvas—even
if tanned, the alkali dust coats it as with white¬
wash—gleams over the green meadow, with
grass so tall as to hide the wheels and horses,
like sails on the ocean. The party was com¬
posed of Mr. Cody, his wife, little Bill, scarce
nine years of age, and two twin-sisters of the
boy. The man rode at the flank or rear, with
the inevitable long rifle at the saddle-bow, and
often left the van to his son.

Familiar with meadow and woodland sights,
expert at shooting, cool, understanding responsi¬
bility, Will Cody was not out of place as the
outlyer. Let there be no surprise at this
precocity. There is a Californian legend, em¬
balmed in bucolic poetry, of a boy of three
shooting a bear, and a better-authenticated tale
of a boy of nine lost with his child sister in the
wild western woods, building huts of boughs,
laying in store of berries, and going a full week
along a river which he remembered as flowing
into a lake where was his home.

The Codies settled near Fort Leavenworth,
in a log-house built under a wood on the

22

“BUFFALO BILL .”

prairie. The subject of our memoir, after the
hard work of building the new dwelling, led
the usual life of frontier youth: he went
hunting, fishing, roaming, to the Fort where
the news came from the East, West, and
North-west, mostly bearing upon the market
price of articles of trade with colonists, fur-
hunters and Indians, and, week by week, he
added to his reputation as a “ promising
citizen.”

Near the Cody homestead was the Vennor
Farm. Mr. Vennor had come from Chicago,
where he had had great expectations from a
wealthy brother, but the watch-pot had not
boiled, and he came out to Fort Leavenworth
and settled there. He had a son and daughter,
the former aged fourteen, the other eighteen,
that is to say, some seven or eight years older
than Will Cody, who, like most of the few
youths in the neighbourhood, promptly had an
attack of calf-love for the beauty. Often she
came to the Cody farm to chat with the twin-
sisters, and soon Bill was her subject and
slave. He gathered for her wild flowers and
fruit, plaited yarn and horse-hair ornaments for
her pony after ancient Indian patterns, offered

■IN THE WILD WEST 1 ”

23

her rarities which fell in his traps or were
hooked from the river, and so on through all
the gamut of a boy’s worship for a mature
enslaver.

His most dangerous rival was a young gallant
from Leavenworth City, with handsome face and
figure, and with plenty of cash, that rarity on the
border, where business transactions are mainly
carried on by exchange of commodities. The
rumour ran that he was a gambler, and other¬
wise morally reprehensible, and his name was
coupled with several very seriously disgraceful
occurrences in the town. Besides his monetary
advantage and personal gifts, he could sing well
and talk admirably, and he was considered
sure to “ walk over the course.” He seemed
to the general eye to be thoroughly in earnest
in his courtship, and, as the Vennors were
not rich, his disinterestedness was praised
by the old crones, who believed that Miss
Nannie Vennor would reform lylr. Hugh Hall,
and that “ reformed rakes make the best
husbands.”

There was more earnest purpose in Mr.
Hall’s wooing than anybody could suspect.
About four years back he had been studying

24

BUFFALO BILL."

law in a Chicago solicitor’s office, where it fell
to him to make the draft of a will for the brother
of Richard Vennor. The terms ran that five
years would be allowed for the finding of the
heir or his family, in the default of which the
property was to be distributed in charity. The
death of Robert Vennor set Hall on the alert to
find the inheritor. He had only meant, perhaps,
to gain a reward from the lucky man for the
first news of the windfall ; but the view of
Nannie Vennor gave a new aim to his move¬
ments. He resolved to wed her, obtain what
he could convert into cash, and levant. What
perplexed him in his scheme, and enhanced his
villany, was the fact of his being already pro¬
vided with a wife.

By the simple chance of this rogue and two
of his companions choosing, for plotting, a grove
in the shade of which Bill Cody was ensconced
for fishing, enough of Hall’s true standing and
design came out for the youth to be on his
guard. After the conference, due to the new¬
comers having heard that Hall’s wife was trying
to discover his whereabouts, and being wishful
to give him warning, the two fellows returned on
horseback to Leavenworth. Hall lingered to

■IN THE WILD WEST.”

25

reflect on the situation, and was in a reverie
which much resembled a doze. His horse,
however, which was grazing near at hand,
would, no doubt, give an alarm. On the spur
of the moment, young Cody thought it the
wiser plan to shoot the wretch offhand with his
faithful revolver ; but this summary execution
was too repugnant to him, and he compromised
with his first inclination, by prudently step¬
ping behind a tree, and hailing Hall till he
awakened.

The man saw he was under fire, and he
swore angrily at the trap, knowing the boy’s
reputation as brave, bold, and excellent with the
revolver, a weapon with which he has ever
remained an expert. The younger of the pair,
who were glaring at each other, ordered the
elder to go before him to Farmer Vennor’s,
where he proclaimed it his intention to de¬
nounce him upon the evidence of his treachery
which he had overheard, and which he pieced
together with much clearheadedness and quick
wit. The fellow pretended to be about obey¬
ing, but as the boy was coming out from behind
the tree, he whipped forth a pistol, and essayed
a snap shot. Its bullet buried itself in the bark

2 $

BUFFALO BILL:

over Cody’s head ; not unnerved, he returned
the fire, and broke the right arm of the back-
woods buck. But nearly all men on the border
are double-handed to a degree which would
have delighted that champion of ambi-dexterity
the late Charles Reade himself. Hall picked
up the revolver with his left hand and the two
fired together as the second round in this
impromptu duel without witnesses.

Again Hall aimed too high, although the
bullet turned the boy’s hat round on his head,
whilst, on the other part, the latter’s shot entered
the opponent’s body. The victor uttered his
sorrow, for his feeling was of commiseration,
whatever the villany of the fallen man, and,
receiving no answer but piteous groans, he
leaped upon the horse of Hall, and rode to
Vennor’s.

The farmer and he returned to find the fellow
cold dead.

His confederates at Leavenworth were
hunted up and allowed a term in which to quit
Kansas, under pain of a short shrift and a long
rope. They made ample confession ofi; their
friend’s guilt, and stated where Hall’s wife was
living. The neighbours rated Bill Cody more

“IN THE WILD WEST." 27

of a hero than ever, and the Vennor family have
always been grateful, “ Miss Nannie that was/'

Mrs. - that is, now a mother of grown

sons, especially sending Christmas gifts to the
Cody homestead.

CHAPTER III.

INDIAN TRADING.—HORSE CATCHING.—THE TRIAL

AT FANCY SHOOTING.-THE CAPTURE OF THE

BLACK STALLION.

Mr. Cody became a trader with the Indians
in Salt Creek Valley, Kansas. His boy often
accompanied him in the expeditions to distant
villages, was left with them as a kind of semi-
amicable hostage in his father’s absence
home, and besides participating in the sports
and pastimes of the Indian youths, was
allowed to join the hunters, and even a band
on the war-path against enemies of their own
colour. All this afforded him an insight into
the customs and manners of thought among
the red brethren, which “ came in handy ” in
after years when he was a pilot to excursions
in the territory of hostile natives.

As the Indian boys are experienced in catch¬
ing and riding their scarcely less than wild

“ IN THE WILD WEST.’

29

ponies, and their white playmate did his best
in emulation of their feats, lie returned into
such civilisation as existed at Fort Leaven¬
worth as perfect a Centaur as any of the red¬
skins.

This was the more fortunate as there was a
chance of making money by it, to say nothing
of acquiring kudos , for Will Cody has always
esteemed fame more highly than lucre.

A drove of horses for the cavalry, bought in
Texas, where they had been roaming wild on
the plains like the herds under the famous
White Steed of Gabriel Ferry and Mayne
Reid, had broken away in a mass, or “ stam¬
peded,” as the American-English of the technical
Spanish term words it. The main body were
soon far away, but a few stragglers remained in
the neighbourhood of the fort, where Billy had
skill enough to catch them, although his own
pony, Rascal, of runaway memory, was not
the fleetest of quadrupeds. On his bringing in
his third or fourth capture, the quartermaster
had kindly remarked :—

“ Young man, those horses were wild enough
when we received them, Uncle Sam knows!
but if they are let keep on getting wilder and

30

BUFFALO BILL."

wilder, they will be harder to take than horses
that have never known the bit. I tell you
what, the Government will stand ten dollars
a head for all that can be made to come in.
Buckle to it, young man, there’s a good thing
there ! ”

This proposition was much to the youth’s
taste. He prepared during a couple of days
for the hard task before him, and in hatching a
plan of barter for a speedier animal than poor
little Rascal. He had some fifty dollars in
coin, pelts and furs and skins, Rascal, and a
spare rifle, and these he offered, increasing
his bid each time, to a sergeant who had
the courser he coveted. But the man was
obdurate. For racing, his horse was a little
mint to him.

Billy was in despair, till the idea struck him
of playing another card. The non-commissioned
officer was vain of his marksmanship, and Cody
challenged him to shoot for the settlement of
the affair : all he had he offered against the
“ grey.” The man wanted the match to come
off immediately, as he was confident of his
powers; but the officers, who had caught
wind of it, and were eager for any novelty to

“IN THE WILD WEST!’ 31

break the monotony of frontier garrison life,
intervened to make an afternoon’s diversion of
it all.

A day was set at a week’s interval, so that
the two contestants might practise. The con¬
ditions were : ten off-hand shots with the rifle
at fifty and at one hundred yards, and six
shots with the revolver at:— a, fifteen paces
from the mark, standing; b, six from horseback;
c, six riding at the target at full speed.

On the appointed day there was an unusual
assemblage on the parade ground of the fort.
The younger competitor had not omitted to
practise, but he had too much confidence in his
prowess not to have thought it superfluous.
He “ came up to the scratch smiling,” to use
the .befitting phrase, whilst the sergeant was
called on, from his having won the toss, to fire
first. His were five good shots, but the others’
were better, and the lad was heartily cheered,
for the expectation had naturally been that with
the rifle the grown man would show superiority.
But it was another story at the longer range ;
the soldier was also better at standing shots
with the small firearm. Still, as in the contest
of riding at full speed by the target, Cody

32

BUFFALO BILL."

shot more truly, the match was decided to be
a tie.

To shoot this off, Cody placed an apple on
his pony’s head between his ears, and, stepping
back to a fit distance, levelled his revolver and
blew the fruit to pieces.

“ I have another apple, sergeant,” remarked
he quietly, after the shouting subsided, “ for
you to try the same on your horse.”

But the soldier did not care to run the risk,
and handed over the grey horse, with a hope he
should have another chance to enjoy possession
of him.

“It will not be at shooting,” observed an old
backwoodsman drily, as the happy boy mounted
his prize and rode off home under the unani¬
mous acclamation.

Here he set to training the new acquisition
in his own way, and after a few days concluded
that he had him well broken in. Thereupon
he set forth by himself to find the stray horses.
Their feeding ground he had ascertained, and
fortunately it had not been changed. It was
up a valley at some miles, where at dusk he
saw them, about five hundred. He had to
camp overnight, but began his operations in

“IN THE WILD WEST."

33

the dawn. One time after another he stole
upon stragglers and, lassoing them, led them
out to a place of security, where he hobbled
them properly for the drive-in. It was slow
and irksome, but he did conduct them to the
fort, where the reward was promptly paid.
This he took to his mother, to whom he was
always dutiful.

He went on the renewal of his enterprise
with a better heart. He had found his new
steed to be faster and firmer-bottomed than any
of the strays, with the exception, perhaps, of
the chief, a large, gaunt “stud,” or stallion,
which was very fast. The settlers and people
at the fort had asserted that it was a wicked
beast, not one of the Government purchases,
but the property of a horse thief who had been
shot dead on its back one night. They called
the horse “ Satan,” a name which augured much
viciousness and wiliness.

As formerly, he reached the horses’ haunt at
nightfall, and had to camp till dawn. Before
he could begin his operations of choosing and
picking, he was startled by the thunder of the
herd rushing by him in his hiding-place, on
their way to drink at the river. The black

34

BUFFALO BILL”

stallion led, as usual, and his triumphant neigh
almost brought about a discovery of the youth
lying in perdu, as his grey began to answer the
challenge. A quick pressure on his nostrils
and to keep his mouth shut, silenced him, and
the cavalcade swept on.

It was a stirring sight in the morning sun :
the almost serried mass, with jnanes and tails
waving like plumes, the coats of all colours,
the eyes, having already lost the dimness of the
brief servitude, gleaming like precious stones.
Except the leader, all were “ paint ” horses,
those oddly-marked ones which are favourites
of the circus performers. The leader was
wholly black, and worthy for his beauty to be
in his place, whatever his fighting qualities, by
which he had more probably gained it.

When the herd entered the stream the youth
rode out of his cover, with his lasso loops on
the swing around his head. At the sound all
the drinking animals lifted their heads : it was
the very nick of time. The running noose
circled round the neck of the black, and, with
the tremendous jerk the grey gave, Satan met
his downfall with a completeness which would

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 35

have rejoiced a backwoods preacher wishful to
point a moral with this simile.

Cody leaped down and secured the prize
with the kind of improvised head-gear called in
that part a “bow-stall.” A turn is taken with
a rope, of the usual material oi» of hide, around
the horse’s head, between eyes and nostrils,
and one end is passed over the head, back of
the ears, and tied on the opposite side, after
being brought through under the loop. With
a second noose around the jaws, the end is
brought back to form reins, and then the
animal can be controlled more effectively than
even by a severe curb bit.

Loosening the lasso, Cody sprang upon the
choked animal as it bounded to its feet and
after the flying herd. Then began such a con¬
flict as is common in the region of wild horses:
the stallion sought to dislodge the rider by
every trick in its knowledge, but all were foiled,
and the attempt to use his teeth was punished
by a pull at the bow-stall. Like most horses
thus maddened by sudden constraint, Satan
dashed forward after the herd, for help or
sympathy. The grey followed its rider upon
the other, but only as far as the edge of the

36

“BUFFALO BILLP

mass. The black alone penetrated it, and
pierced clean through, the Mazeppa clinging
to the bare back aiid the headstall as the only
means of avoiding the death of being trampled
by a score of hoofs.

The usual course of mustang rough-riders
is to keep the new pupil hard on the run till
he falls thoroughly exhausted. But Cody had
noticed ^that his grey, afraid to pass into the
press of its kind and otherwise alarmed, had
taken to a mad flight over the prairie in
another direction to that pursued by the
number.

Not to lose the bone for the shadow—for
the capture was not yet assuredly his subject
—the youth quickly made up his mind to a
course, worthy of Alexander and his “ fiery,
untamed steed.” He subdued the stallion
with the rope bridle alone, and what is more
wonderful, turned and guided him in chase of
the grey. In the midst of his fatigue and
excitement he was delighted to find that the
horse he was upon was more speedy than the
grey, which he overtook.

By this time the new mount had acknow¬
ledged its master, and yielded to having the

“IN THE WILD WEST.’

37

saddle and bridle transferred from the grey,
which became the led one, bearing the stores
and rifle in a triumphant return to the fort.

Really fleet horses are eagerly bought by the
officers, the safety of whose heads often depend¬
ing upon their “ Americans ” being superior to
the Indians’ war ponies. The native chiefs, it
is to be remembered, carefully select the best
for their fighting-days, much as the knights of
old reserved chargers solely for the fray and
tourney. There were several handsome offers
for Satan, but Bill Cody had an eye to the
capture of more of the fugitives. Indeed, he
succeeded in bringing in still a goodly number ;
but the offer of ten dollars a head set others on
the track, and the youth had to be content with
what he had gained and the possession of Satan
and Little Grey.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BORDER RUFFIANS.—MAKING FREE WITH
PROPERTY IN THE FREE STATE.

Just before the outbreak of the great Civil
War in the United States, there were districts
where passions were hotly seething. As on
the Virginian border the raid of John Brown,
1859, stirred up the negro slaves, so, on the
Kansas border, 1855, there was fierce agitation
about the same question of Abolition of Slavery.
The settlers from the south and south-east,
mostly having slaves in their households and
for labourers, naturally held to the right of pro¬
perty over their “ human chattels.” The settlers
from the north and north-east were, as naturally,
upholders of the Free State doctrine, that any
slave entering into Kansas became a free and
independent citizen.

It was with this latter party that Mr. Isaac
Cody sided, and he did so prominently. On

“IN THE WILD WEST." 39

one occasion, when he was addressing a meet¬
ing, he was badly wounded in an attack by “ the
Border Ruffians,” as the slave-holders’ most
active and lowest partisans were styled. When
he was in health again, and able to work on the
farm, he found his name was on the black book,
for he was harried and harassed more than
once, and it was furthermore no secret that he
was even sentenced to death by hanging by
some of the secret societies prevalent in the
tormented State.

Once, when his son was in the city, he heard
of an immediate essay to carry out this decree,,
and rode home with the warning on the black
horse. At the outskirts he was recognised by
the rabble mustering for the errand, and hotly
pursued. He ran the gauntlet and outstripped
the band, with time to let his father escape.
The disappointed men beat the youngster for
having baffled them, and their leading spirit,
one Jake M'Kandlas, took away Satan. He
had always distinguished himself by a love of
horseflesh unfettered by any o.vernice scruples
on the law of mine and thine.

This was a heavier blow to the boy than the
corporeal ones, and he vowed to regain his

40

BUFFALO BILL .”

property at any cost; but the bandits were not
easily come at by a single foe. In fact, the
“Jay Hawkers,” as they pleasantly dubbed
themselves, augmented their ranks every day.

After some weeks of a peace which was no
peace from the continual worry of false alarms,
two of the Jay Hawkers rode up to the Cody
log-house after the master. They would not
accept denial, but “ went through ” the house
in a scrutiny, and, installing themselves at ease,
ordered the Misses Cody, now girls of ten, to
get them supper. A meal is usually quickly
prepared when the guests flank their plates with
a bowie-knife and a revolver. At the height
of the feast, Cody and his son came home; but,
fortunately, one of the girls managed to slip out
and warn them of the untimely visitors. Less
fortunately, the farmer had had his wound break
out afresh, and his ride in suffering had given
him a fever. He crept upstairs and went to
his bed, unable to venture farther on horseback,
cost what might his staying at home.

Will Cody went boldly into the kitchen,
which is the dining-room of log-houses, and
was immediately bantered by M'Kandlas about
the excellence of Satan, whom he had

“/.V THE WILD WEST:

4i

“ borrowed.” As the tart answer only excited
the ruffian’s wrath, Bill understood his mother’s
glance, and prudently walked out of the room.
He was joined almost instantly by one of his
sisters, who told him that the men thought his
father had accompanied him home, and they
were swearing to search the place again.

Bill Cody and his mother went up to the bed¬
room, where the farmer had gone off into a
troubled sleep. He was in fever, certainly.
Without awakening him, the youth left his
mother at the bedside, and went out on the
landing to keep guard.

He was none too soon, for both the men
came out of the kitchen, pistol in hand, and
began ascending the stairs, until challenged to
stop by the watcher. As no reply was made
but a taunting laugh, the latter fired, and
one man, wounded, fell down the stairs, carry¬
ing his mate with him. The latter was
M'Kandlas, who probably feared that both of
the Codies were commanding the stairwayhead.
He abandoned his comrade, and ran out to the
tree where their horses were fastened up.

But young Cody was already at the window
overlooking the scene, and he called out:

42 “BUFFALO BILL.”

“ Let my horse alone, or I’ll fire on you with
my rifle.”

Jake immediately preferred the other animal
to Satan, and rode away. The badly wounded
bandit was put in a waggon and carried to the
nearest surgeon until he could be taken home.
Justice did not condescend to notice such “ little
difficulties.”

After this tragic episode, as the political
strife seemed appeased for a time, young Cody
was made to suffer from the arts of peace even
more than from those of internal war.

CHAPTER V.

THE RISING HERO WHIPPED.-SCHOOL AGAIN.—

SECOND ATTACK OF CALF-LOVE.—A ONE¬
SIDED DUEL.-“ BULLWHACKING.”

It was warrantable for the hope of the
Codies to think himself a man after these
valiant acts, although only in his twelfth year;
but his mother found all her son’s accomplish¬
ments to be with horses and weapons of war,
and never comprising “book-learning,” which
is essentially a craze of the “ Bostons ” or New
England people. The good lady, therefore,
urged him to go to a school near by.

We fancy that the description of a wild
Western school and its master, given by the
native wit, “ Bill Nye,” applies here : a wooden
shanty, rough, uncouth, unkempt hobbledehoys,
and a hard-fisted blacksmith turned professor,
who backed up his ferule with a revolver of
portentous dimensions.

44

“BUFFALO BILL .”

It is needless to say that the superabundant
high spirits in Master Cody earned him
many a flogging ; but these little affected the
budding hero, inured to hard life and harder
blows.

The quality of the bystanders alters the degree
of punishment, however, and the Eastern school
innovation of the lambs and goats being edu¬
cated in the same room—we mean, the class
being of both boys and girls—brought about a
change in Cody’s careless endurance of chastise¬
ment.

Among the young ladies, who sat on the
forms behind the front row devoted to the
ruder sex, was a well-to-do settler’s daughter,
one Mollie Hyatt.

She was pretty, and, with American precocity,
responded to the quick fancy of Master Cody,
undeterred by his previous amourette. The
bully of the school, arrogating a sultan’s power
over the bevy of beauties, however, cast his
sheep’s eyes upon Miss Mollie, and, being much
stronger and older than Cody, he seemed so
astonished at the presumption of the latter, that
an explanation was demanded.

Unhappily, Nestor heard this quarrelling of

IN THE WILD WEST.”

45

Hector and Achilles, and, choosing to believe
Hector’s version of the difference, he called up
Master Cody to be “ horsed,” as never before
in his equestrian experiences, and severely
flogged him before the whole school. Since
Miss Hyatt had come there, Cocty had been on
his best behaviour, and this rarity in the way of
chastisement cut him up more deeply than the
cowhide, to say nothing of a thirst for revenge
upon Stephen Gobel, his rival.

The very next day Gobel, who still pestered
the pair of juvenile sweethearts, not being con¬
tent with the ignominy he had cast, pulled down
an arbour built by Paul for his Virginia. In
return, Bill tried to pull down Steve. A des¬
perate pugilistic combat ensued. But Cody was
overmatched, and in his double pain from heavy
blows and impending defeat, he whipped out a
pocket-knife, which he had to open between his
teeth, and stabbed his almost conqueror in the
side. Bill rushed away through the frightened
school-children to where his pony was hobbled,
and rode off madly.

On the road he came up with a waggon-train
going west, in whose “ boss ” he recognised an
old friend of his father’s, one who warmly re-

46

“BUFFALO BILL:

ceived him, and made light of the story which
he told with much emotion. One Gobel more
or less little distressed the Westerner, who, in¬
deed, suggested the train going into camp whilst
he and his teamsters went back to the temple
of learning and “ cleaned it out.” This van¬
dalism being objected to, the matter was com¬
promised by Cody accompanying the caravans.
A man rode to his home to tell of his where¬
abouts, and on his return he brought a note
from Mrs. Cody to say Gobel was not much
hurt, although it would perhaps be wise for the
offender to keep away till the family resentment
blew over.

For months Bill Cody was learning the
science of ox-team driving or “ bull-whacking,”
since most of its disciples do not overburden
themselves with delicate touches, but confine
themselves to belabouring the beasts whenever
they do not go smoothly. From this experience
he became thoroughly acquainted with horned
cattle in subjection, and obtained that mastery
of the teamster’s whip at which even the fore¬
most Australian stockman can hardly hope to
excel him. To hear the loud crack of his whip
sends a shudder of awe down the whole column

IN THE WILD WEST.”

47

of a bullock-train, and would make a rhinoceros’s
hide creep.

When Cody returned home, Miss Hyatt was
in love elsewhere, and the Gobels had forgiven
the boyish conflict. Besides, the inter-State
war was at a crisis.

CHAPTER VI.

A BORDER RAID.—THE SUPPRESSION OF A “ NIGGER
WORSHIPPER.”—THE FIRST RAISING OF HAIR.

Young Cody had, in fact, returned into a pot
boiling over. The dissensions about slavery
were at their height. But to see the reunited
family in the evening, in the now tolerably
comfortable log-house, one would have thought
it remote from fear of any descent of savages,
red or white. On such a night, whilst the
white-haired and patriarchal-looking Mr. Cody
was reading prayers at bedtime, with his son,
his daughters, and wife by his side, there was
an alarm from the gallop of horses towards
their dwelling.

As the Indians were much disturbed by the
certainty of a war between the whites, during
which they expected to profit greatly, and might
count on many excuses for their innate longing
to fight, all supposed it was one of their forays.

“ IN THE WILD WEST:

49

But they were worse than red savages who
approached. They heard a shout in English
as the large mounted troop halted before the
door.

Mr. Cody, somewhat reassured, opened it
and stood on the threshold. The riders were
irregularly dressed, but all armed to the teeth ;
their aspect was not encouraging.

“ Who are you, and what do you want ? ”

“ You are wanted, you black-hearted ‘nigger-
worshipper,’ ” was the answer ; “ and I —Colonel
M‘Kandlas—have come to fetch you.”

It was the ancient enemy of this humble
house, self-appointed commander of a guerilla
corps, anticipating the proclamation of war
between the Southern and Northern States by
outrages on political opponents.

“ As for warrant—there’s my warrant,” -he
went on, deliberately aiming a pistol at the
father and shooting him dead before his horror-
stricken family, with the open Bible on the
hospitable board behind him.

The murderer was going to ride off amid the
approval of his fellows, when Bill Cody cried
out for him to stop, and he boldly proclaimed his
resolution to be avenged on them all for this

BUFFALO BILL .”

So

crime : “ I will kill every father’s son of you
before the beard grows on my face! ”

They believed him, and they would have
crushed him before he could begin carrying out
this vow, but for the mother throwing herself
between. Besides, their scouts signalled the
proximity of a U.S. cavalry company, and the
party galloped away, leaving the wretched
family alone with the dead.

It is easy to imagine that when the war
between the Federals and Confederates broke
out in 1861, Bill Cody, with this outrage to
repay upon the partisans of the Southern States,
should espouse the cause of the North. He
became herder to drive some government cattle
to the army of General Albert Sydney Johnson.
It was marching against the Mormons at Salt
Lake, who were brooding over an outbreak
against the powers at Washington, in this
moment of acute distress. The Mormons had
lately been held up as a blot on the United
States as black as the Southerners, the same
class of reformers who opposed slavery esteeming
polygamy as no better. As the Mormons have
always contrived to be friends with all the
Indians, they Would have no difficulty in sending

“IN THE WILD WEST 51

them on the warpath against the settlers. If
this was generally done, communication between
the East and California would have been cut,
and serious embarrassment must have occurred.
There were not wanting men in the Golden
State who proposed setting up an independent
empire of the Pacific and keeping out of the
war altogether.

Hence General Johnson’s expedition.

As far as Cody was concerned, “ the beef-
herd” to which he belonged had no adventures
until old Fort Kearney was reached.

The train camped in its vicinity, and most of
the drivers and drovers were enjoying “ a pipe
and a snooze ” after noonday meal, under the
waggons, including our hero, with three or four
on the look-out. Nobody expected an attack
from any quarter.

Suddenly there were shots, the red men’s
warwhoop and the rapid hoof-falls of a band of
braves. The three guards were killed instantly,
and the cattle stampeded. The bull-whackers
sprang to their feet, rallied and met the charge
of savages with a volley from their yagers, or
short, thick guns, resembling the Mexicaa
escopeta or our blunderbuss. Their ball-and-

52

BUFFALO BILL .»

buckshot checked their advance. But as their
position was untenable, the train-master ordered
retreat to the South Platte River, where the
bank would be a rampart. Mounted Indians
seldom charge white men behind any breast¬
work.

The men were retiring when Cody reminded
them of the wounded, two in number, shot in
the leg and side respectively, and quite dis¬
abled. The Indians would have scalped them,
at all events, and perchance have treated them
even more barbarously. So they were lifted
up and carried to the bank at a run before the
reds recovered from the volley. The man
wounded in the side died before they arrived in
shelter.

The council they held came to the conclusion
that retreat must be continued to the fort, to be
reached by a raft of driftwood and cut poles for
the wounded, the others to wade in the shallow
water as close in to the bank as possible, which
would serve as rampart. The Indians, cheered
by their success so far, and always prone to
follow up a retreat to cut off stragglers, were
only kept at bay by the guns.

Night brought no cessation of the pursuit,

“ IN THE IVII.D WEST." 53

and there were several laggards from sheer
fatigue ; the boy Billy was the most exhausted,
and he was the hindmost. He was toiling
along in the dark when an Indian suddenly
appeared, dark in the moonshine on the bank,
which he was clambering over. It was a scout
of the enemy who was well aware of the
fugitives’ course, but from eagerness to get a
shot, or from the bank deceiving him, he missed
foothold and slid down the treacherous earth
fairly into the water. The sight of Cody, on
whom he bid fair to precipitate himself, drew
from him a yell. Bill replied with a rifleshot
so promptly, that he died more by that bullet
than by drowning. The boy grasped his
feathered topknot and towed him along till
some of his friends, who had heard the shot,
met him still in the stream.

“ It’s my Injun ! ” said Cody.

That was acknowledged, and the trainmaster
cut off the scalp-lock, which he presented to the
boy, with the saying that it was his first and
would not be the last. He received it shudder-
ingly, for the white men are long repugnant to
such trophies, even if they do get inured to
the habit.

54 “BUFFALO BILL.”

The excitement and the consciousness that
the Indian would have been wearing his scalp
if the bank had not given way under him,
invigorated Bill so that he kept up with the
band. The Indians gave up the chase when
they were near the fort, and made off with their
usual fleetness, so that the detachment of
cavalry, sent after them, no more found traces
of them than of the stampeded cattle.

CHAPTER VII.

“WILD BILL.”-BUFFALO HUNTING AND BUFFALO

RIDING.-A DUEL A L’AMERICAINE.—CAPTURED

BY “THE DESTROYING ANGELS.”

Young Cody’s pay from this expedition was
the more welcome as the family to which cruel
chance had prematurely made him the head,
was in circumstances which raised his pay as
bull-whacker into a matter of consideration.
Knowing this fact of his ability to support them
all, which still farther tended to steady and
develope the incipient man in him, Bill agreed,
with his mother’s reluctant consent, to make
another waggon journey to the far West. It
was in the capacity of an “ extra hand,” the sort
of understudy to the able-bodied teamster,
being one who receives full pay but has no
recognized position until he replaces some one
killed or on the sick-list.

The waggon-train was of twenty-fite vehicles,
heavily laden, say with six thousand pounds

56

“BUFFALO BILL .”

weight, and drawn by four yoke of oxen a-piece.
The chief was an old and experienced man
named Lewis Simpson, with an excellent lieu¬
tenant; then came Billy as “extra,” a night
herder, whose duty in watching in the dark is
onerous in Indian territory, a cavallard ( cabal -
lado) driver who takes care of the lame and
stray cattle much as, on English roads, the head
drover follows the sheep in a hospital cart and
takes up the footsore, and the bull-whackers,
one to each cart. All the men were mounted,
of course, and armed with large-bore shot-guns
and repeating pistols.

Billy Cody rode Satan, as good a piece of
horseflesh as when he first re-broke him, and
one that his companions much envied him.
Some of the men even talked of getting hold of
him by hook or crook, but at the first word of
violence to possess him, the assistant train¬
master intervened, saying :

“ The boy caught that horse wild—it’s his—
if he cannot keep it, I can, for him. Pards,
the man that lays hands on him settles with
me.”

This second in command was not the celebrity
he afterwards became, but, even so early, his

■IN THE WILD WEST."

57

reputation in his then limited circle was such
that Cody felt secure in his property after this
offer of championship.

“ Wild Bill,” the expressive nickname of
J. B. Hitchcock or Hickok (being spelt both
ways, but the first seems the more authentic),
was a remarkable man.

He stood six foot one, was straight as an ash,
broad in the shoulder, round and full in the
chest, slender in the waist but strong, the hips
and thighs large, but hands and feet small.
Those who saw John C. Heenan, the American
prize-fighter who met Tom Sayers, can form an
idea of this American type of athlete. Bill’s
face was regular in features, with fleshy eagle
nose common in the West among those who
cope with the similarly aquiline-nosed Indians,
in confirmation of Lavater’s theory. His eyes
were blueish-grey. His brown hair was worn
long, as is the fashion of Indian-fighters, that
being “ the counter-check quarrelsome ” to the
redman’s retaining a scalp-lock on the shaven
crown. Both signify that the hair is at the
grasp of anybody foolhardy enough to “ come
take it! ”

There was much likeness in person and

58

“BUFFALO BILL:

nature betwixt the two Bills, and from that
moment a friendship sprang up between them
which the death of Hitchcock alone termi¬
nated.

As the waggon-men kept in good health and
the Indians never appeared, the young “ extra ”
was detailed off as the hunter of the party*
He would go ahead and shoot what game he
could encounter, bringing into the camp-place
agreed upon overnight for the next night’s, what
small game or portions of the greater he could
carry on his horse, or marking the spot so that
men could ride out and bring it in later.

It was upon one of these lone hunts that he
gained the sobriquet of “ Buffalo Billy,” the
similar one of “ Buffalo Bill ” being acquired on
a subsequent occasion for another feat, as we
shall show. Having shot an antelope and dis¬
mounted from Satan to cut it up for transporta¬
tion, the horse took to flight. An enormous
herd of buffaloes were coming on over the
prairie, and the horse had rightly interpreted
the nature of the thunderous sound. A man
on level ground has no chance of saving him¬
self against such a widely spreading mass unless
he find an impassable barrier or quickly rear

'■IN THE WILD WEST.”

59

one, which has been done by raising a barrier
of dead bisons, against which the army
splits. This was too desperate an expedient,
and Bill rather preferred going to “tree ” him¬
self. There was just one solitary cottonwood
tree standing at hand, which he had used as a
cover when he was stalking the deer. He ran
to it, and climbed to a safe seat in the thick
of it.

On looking over the herd to see how long it
would be in passing, he perceived horses in the
rear; on these horses were Indians, who were
pricking them with lances to keep them “ on
the dead run.” As the centre of the herd was
in a line with the tree, the following hunters
would inevitably come directly to it, and in¬
fallibly perceive the man. The buffaloes they
were sure enough of; they would stop and secure
the paleface’s scalp.

Here was a certain and a most cruel death ;
it is only in story books that the plains Indians
carry captives hundreds of miles to their towns,
where an Indian maiden takes pity on them
and helps them to escape ; the genuine Indian
maiden is brought up more apt to sharpen the
sacrificial knives and cheer the participators

6o

“ BUFFALO BILL .”

in the dance of joy over the successful
warriors who come home with “hair” and
stolen horses.

In escape there was risk of another kind of
death, but he took it.

Bill fastened his rifle to his back, went out
upon a limb, and coolly selected a buffalo bull,
which, serried in the mass, was bound to come
underneath his perch with mathematical accu¬
racy. Upon him he dropped, clutching the
long, shaggy mane which irreverent dandy
hunters from Europe call a “ doormat,” and
driving in his spurs. The Southwestern spur,
it may be mentioned here, has a rowel only less
large in circumference than the front steering-
wheel of a tricycle. Maddened with pain and
terror, the strange steed bellowed, darted for¬
ward, gored everything in its course and soon
cleft the herd until it led the way.

As the herd happened to proceed towards
the train-men’s encampment, they came out
upon hearing the noise and attempted to head
them off. But the troop was irrepressible. It
invaded the camp, starting the horses and
draught cattle into flight and alarming the
men, who could not but feel that their comrade

11 IN THE WILD WEST? 61

Billy, still stoutly bestriding the head bull, was
rather overdoing this novel way of bringing
meat into camp.

It looked as if the rider would be carried off
into Texas, in spite of the animal’s being some¬
what exhausted ; but Wild Bill killed him with
a rifle shot, and his namesake dropped off the
corpse within the camp boundaries.

Thus was earned the title of “ Buffalo Billy.”
The incident has been used in fiction more
than once, but we do not know of its occurring
in actuality to any other veritable personage.

There were brushes with the Indians, with
no fatal consequences, up to Green River, near
the Rocky Mountains.

Here Simpson, Billy, and another had
dropped behind the train for an afternoon
hunt, and were catching up with it at the
appointed camping ground when they saw a
troop of horsemen approaching. As these
were white men and they expected nothing
inimical of that complexion, they rode to meet
them and exchange the news of the plains for
that of the mountains. They were surprised
to hear the conventional challenge of brigands
of the West:

62

“BUFFALO BILL .”

‘‘Hands up! You are dead men if you
resist! ”

It was a posse of the Mormon Church mili¬
tant, under command of Joe Smith, successor
to the Smith who was one of the Latter Day
Saints and Fathers of the Mormon Faith.
These men were members of the inner legion,
called by themselves Danites, for “the children
of Dan went up to fight against Leshem, and
took it, and smote it with the edge of the
sword, and possessed it, and dwelt therein.”
The Gentiles, as the other barbarians were
called by them, know them as “ the Destroying
Angels,” and many a blood-curdling tale is
current, on the border, of whole emigrant trains
burnt to ashes and every man, woman, and
child massacred to prevent the Mormon settle¬
ment being overrun by outsiders. Be this as
it may, in the present instance, Joe Smith in¬
formed Lewis Simpson that he and his two
companions were prisoners, and that he had
captured the rest of the train, as the Mormons
had been let approach under the impression
they were United States cavalry.

Bringing the three to the camp, all the articles
which could be removed on horseback were

“IN THE WILD WEST.’

63

packed for that purpose, and everything else
burned in the waggons, one alone being spared
for the food supply of the prisoners. These
were bidden march away on foot to Fort
Bridger. General Johnson was welcome to
them as a reinforcement, but the munitions
would never reach him. This was a bad look¬
out all round, as it was autumn and the supplies
were much more in request than men.

The train-men took the prospect sullenly and
without active remonstrance, mishaps of any
magnitude being borne in this country with
philosophical calmness, after a little blowing oft
of steam in extravagant profanity. But Buffalo
Billy could not bear to see his splendid horse
Satan, who had been recovered after the buffalo
ride, taken by a stranger, and he begged for his
return on any terms of ransom. At the height
of the appeal one of the Angels heard Cody’s
name mentioned, and recognised it the more
readily as he was one of the gang of horse-
thieves, counterfeiters, and gamblers, to which
Hugh Hall had belonged. Not only had he to
avenge his “ partner,” but his being ordered out
of the State by the boy’s means.

“ I owe you one, young cock,” said he there-

6 4

‘'BUFFALO BILL."

upon, “ but I aril willing to call it evens by
sticking to your horse that you are whimpering
about.”

“Whimper or no whimper, I will fight you
for him.” said Cody, fiercely.

When “ fight’s the word ” on the prairie few
try the office of peacemaker, but the train-men
did essay to dissuade the boy, for the bandit
was a man double his weight, and no doubt
expert at weapons in the same proportion.

Nevertheless the arrangements for a duel
were made ; the men to be posted at fifty paces,
to walk to meet one another at the word and
fire with revolvers till one fell. It was meant
to be a fatal duel, for Joe Smith was heard to
say of Cody that “ though a boy in years, he
was one of those whom it was meet to be
rid of.”

The success of the Mormons as regards both
dupes and leaders, verifies the saying that
“although perhaps no judges of piety, they
were good judges of men.” Smith had gauged
Cody pretty correctly.

The Mormon captain gave the word. Billy
stood still; his opponent came on, firing rapidly,
till, after four shots, he was dangerously near.

“ IN THE WILD WEST, 1 ”

6S

Thereupon out went the youngster’s revolver
to the level and the trigger was pulled. Down
went the man at the flash, “ holed ” in the leg,
and that ended the duel.

But the Danites would not give up the prize,
averring that a wounded man could not con¬
tinue the fight, which was consequently only
deferred. Simpson and Wild Bill, at any risk,
uttered their opinion cf the Mormons to the
effect of their being thieves and ordinary horse
thieves at that, and it looked as if a many-
cornered duel or a massacre must be the
outcome.

But Cody appeared suddenly reconciled to
the decree. He went, sadly hanging his head,
up to his black horse to caress it good-bye,
when he abruptly leaped on its saddle in the
Indian style, and rode off, lying low, with a yell
of defiance and taunting. The Danites shot at
him, and some mounted and pursued; but
Satan beat the Angels for once.

Shortly after, Billy joined the disconsolate
train-men on their way to Fort Bridger.

CHAPTER VIII.

“STANDING OFF” THE REBMEN.—COOLNESS UNDER
FIRE.-THE BORDER MENU IN A CLOSE FIX.

—satan’s useful end.

Not only had the train under command of
Simpson met with the disaster narrated, but
the Mormons or Indians, much the same thing,
had captured others. In the autumn and
winter, therefore, the’garrison and the dwellers
about the fort, there being extra troops and
many men of the army service corps and
contractors’ trains, were put to privations.
Mule meat was a standing dish, and fuel had
to be hauled from the distant mountains by
the men themselves, in the absence of the
beasts of burden which had been figured on the
bills of fare. The change from the salt pork
of ordinary provision, said the men, was “ only
from salt horse to fresh ditto.”

The train-men were organised militarily for
discipline’s sake. Buffalo Billy became Wild

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

67

Bill’s lieutenant We believe it was on one
of their hunting expeditions that Wild Bill
saved his friend’s life, in danger from the
Ogallala Sioux, and, again, when he was
all but drowned in an attack of cramps in
the ice-cold Platte River (i860, says “Ned
Buntline ”).

The two Bills were not in company in the
spring when Simpson returned eastward, for it
was Cody alone who accompanied him as meat
provider for the train, a post earned him by his
sureness of shooting, and craft in finding game
and circumventing it.

One day Simpson and an “ extra ” on mules
Went out hunting with Bill on Satan. Well
out on the plains, they suddenly saw Indians
emerge from a crack in the earth. With their
ponies refreshed by the lying in wait, they
could surely outrun mules. But Cody would
not make his escape alone on the horse, though
he ought to have obeyed his captain’s orders
for him to do so, whilst the two did their best
to “stand off” the redskins. He might be
able to bring succour from the waggon-train
camp. The other alternative was to make a
breastwork of the quadrupeds, since nothing in

68

BUFFALO BILL:

the way of a barrier was on the prairie, and
abide the attack.

They found a slight hollow, such as buffaloes
make by wallowing to dry their coats or to-
dust-out the vermin, and on its edges intended
to lay their killed horses. They shot them
dead, Bill shutting his eyes not to see himself
slay his favourite steed. The bodies were
dragged round as shields, and the dirt was
heaped up with knives to strengthen this
singular and yet common barricade on the
plains, in grass or sand.

It must always be kept in mind, in judging
such fights of a few white men, sometimes one
alone, against Indians in force, that the latter
do not comprehend courage unalloyed with
prudence. The end obtained without loss of
life is always an end to be lauded above
even greater fruit harvested by the opposite
means.

A character like Napoleon’s is not under¬
stood by the American war-chiefs, since they
could not send men to death by troops in order
that other men should enjoy the victory.

The Indians were nearly three-score. They
carried out their every-day tactics.

“JN THE WILD WESTT ' 69

Making all the noise and wild gestures they
could to appal the whites and confuse their
aim, they rushed at the little defence. All
three within it fired simultaneously, after which
Simpson reloaded all the heavy shot guns,
whilst Bill and Woods, the third man, drove
the enemy off with revolvers ; before they could
get out of range the “ yager ” rifles were ready
again, and their departure was accelerated by
their discharge.

On the plain lay four ponies and their riders,
whilst an additional red corpse testified to the
shooting poAvers of the beleaguered. This may
not have much dismayed the enemy, but it
gave the others better heart.

The old course was continued : the Indians
“ circled ” round the little fort several times,
pouring on it arrows in such profusion and at
such various angles that it was not possible
to elude them all; besides, some were shot
up to fall with an almost perpendicular trajec¬
tory, like the Norman arroAvs at Hastings.
All the Avhite men Avere Avounded, albeit not
dangerously, Avhilst the dead mules and horses
fairly bristled with shafts. This discharge Avas
done as much to draw fire as in any hope

7 o

BUFFALO BILL."

to do damage; but the border men were too
wary to waste ammunition in such a strait.

The Indians, therefore, made another charge
in the mass, a rare act on their part, although,
it must be acknowledged, they have of late
years behaved very much like white men in
their military manoeuvres.

After the volley from the yagers all three
stood up to the on-coming, whooping horsemen,
with revolvers. Bill was double-handed at this
play, so that the defenders seemed to be four
in number. The enemy could not come near
enough for a hand-to-hand action through this
withering fire. Cody had killed three outright
with the pistol shots. Within twenty yards the
wild cavalry broke their line and each man
scattered for a rallying place out of range.

The defenders reloaded and dressed one-
another’s wounds. There was a farther respite,
of which they took advantage to snatch a bite
and strengthen the fortification by earthing it
up, whilst the redskins held that powwow or
parley which often neutralizes their powers of
evil. The white men alone know how to
yield individual opinions to a central head,
and that saves time in these fights, which, if

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 71

not short, usually terminate in favour of the
besieged.

Before dusk another charge was made in
column, a novel performance for reds, but
they were bent' on crushing the dauntless trio.
The chief, on whom they had cast reproaches
for the previous repulses, led them on, but was
shot by Cody, and that ruined this onset, with
other losses. They drew off to consult, choose
a new leader, and try a new course.

It was to pretend to go away after only too
palpably forming a line. But Simpson was an
old plainsman who “ knew nothing if he did not
know Injun.”

“ Pards,” said he, “ they must take us all for
fools who do not know that Injuns never leave
their dead unburied. They want to decoy us
out into the open so as to ride us down and
spear us. It’s no go. Here we live until the
train boys come to see whar we have gone and
lost ourselves.”

Their commissariat principally included horse
and mule meat. Bill enunciated his repugnance
to touch of his favourite saddle-horse, whilst
Woods reckoned mule meat good enough for
him at such a pinch, and Simpson saw no other

72

buffalo Fill .»

change but Injun, which, he grimly added, with
that unsmiling face preventing the uninitiated
ever divining whether a Western American is
joking or not, “ we may have to eat yet.”

In the night they had a revelation of the
besiegers’ presence by a smoke from the prairie
grass, fired with design to burn out the little
fort. Luckily, the grass was not thick so soon
in the year. Still, under what cover the smoke
afforded, the redskins advanced only to be re¬
pelled for the last time. Their most fiery
warriors had succumbed and the more timid
successors advised starving out the three that
held the fort.

They went into camp with sentries in a ring
round the unfortunates.

In the dry season dead animals are not
offensive, but, at this, the flesh would probably
be carrion, and so taint the air breathed by the
whites that their wounds, even if superficial,
would become fatally gangrened. Besides,
they wanted for water.

However, in the afternoon of that day of
suffering, the train-men came up on the trail.
The three wretches mustered breath to cheer
with glee and relief, and the Indians, respond-

“IN THE WILD WEST” 7 j

ing with a howl of rage, mounted and fled.
The defence was considered by all as a highly
creditable performance. But Cody’s delight
was marred by the sorrow at the loss of Satan.

CHAPTER IX.

TRAPPING ON THE REPUBLICAN RIVER.-THE

BROKEN LEG.-ALONE IN THE WILDER¬

NESS. — THE SIOUX. — THE PIKE’S PEAK

GOLD-RUSH.-THE DUEL FOR THE GOLD

MINE.

The history of the Fur Trade in America is
composed of several chapters. Very good
works appear on some points, as the Astoria
expedition, chronicled by Irving, the Alaska
seal fields by a recent writer, and of the Hud¬
son’s Bay Company there exist records which
might now be published, since there is no trade
secret to keep, But the most adventurous
region, that of the Rocky Mountains and
Yellowstone Valley, to say nothing of the
Sierra Nevada and Oregon, furnished daring
and patient explorers, whose lives are but im¬
perfectly and unworthily known by anecdotes
and sketches. Except for Captain Ruxton’s

'IN THE WILD WEST”

75

unique book, for he lived with ^he genuine
lone-trappers, like Bill Williams, there is little
really known about the pioneers whose laying
down of trails with their pack-mules traced the
highways to where stand cities of our time.
Here and there, their names still linger to
mounts and rivers and vales, on which they
were first among white men to set their eyes ;
but, from many of them, parlour geographers,
army officers eager to gratify a stay-at-home
patron’s vanity, and ignorant folk have wrested
the well-deserved title in favour of some dis¬
honest or senseless one.

The day should come, however, when
America will be properly proud of her native
heroes; and, then, Bridger, Boone, Bent,
Williams, Carson, and their comrades will
have statues in market-places, and their lives
will be read in schools that the young may be
taught to revere those who made the West of
America the site of myriads of happy homes.

Trapping is carried on by hunters alone, by
pairs, or in companies. Since the railways have
connected East and West and North and
South, mere slaughterers have succeeded them
in the most accessible spots, killing wantonly

76

“BUFFALO BILL : 1

with magazine rifles, and despatching the skins
and bones to railway stations, whilst the party
continues its butcheries.

Cody had made up his mind, soon after
returning home and finding his nature would
not let him abide in idleness, that a venture at
trapping would suit him best.

He joined a party of trappers, and they went
upon the upper waters of the Laramie River,
but the animals were scarce. As the true
hunter will not for shame’s sake return home
empty-handed, Bill paired off with Dave
Harrington, a young man not by far his elder,
and they went off to Junction City, Kansas, and
thence up the Republican River to Prairie Dog
Creek, where beaver abounded. The price of
these furs is nothing at all like what it was in the
rare old days when beaver hats were worn by
all the well-to-do in Europe, before the Paris
silk hat superseded it; but still it pays to “ get
beaver.” For bringing to market their pelts,
and taking out their food and ammunition, they
had a cart and a yoke of oxen. But one of
these fell over a cliff, and they were left to face
winter without means of transport. This was
not the only blow of evil fortune, for, during the

h\ THE WILD WEST.”

77

early winter, whilst following elk in the snow-
crust, Bill fell and broke his leg.

It was resolved that Dave was to leave his
partner as comfortable as possible in a dug-out
or artificial cave, roofed over with boughs to be
snow-proof, which he filled with firewood and
provisions. The limb was set with all the
surgical skill of which he was capable, most
frontiersmen having a good training in simple
fractures and in herbal remedies, part of Indian
craft and part old-wife recipes from England
and the Continent. Harrington then departed
on his hundred miles’ journey to the nearest
settlement, from which he hoped to return with
a yoke of oxen and a sledge to carry away his
comrade and the furs—a month’s time, with
reason, in the deep snow of an untrodden wild.

The youth with the broken limb was left
alone. Even to put wood on the fire was
painful, and to cook was agony ; but he had to
grin and bear it all. The silence was as intense
.as the frost, or only entered upon by the roar of
the tempest and howling of wolves, who scented
the human being in the half-buried nook. A
thousand horrible suppositions about his friend
tormented him night and day, though he never

78

“BUFFALO BILL .”

doubted him. But there were the dangers of
losing the true direction, the wild beasts, and
the savages. That the latter had not been
snow-bound, Bill soon was to know, for he had
a visit from some Sioux in war paint. They
had seen the unaccustomed smoke issuing from
the deepset “ lodge in the vast wilderness,” and
it even more surprised them to find a young
paleface on their territory.

Cody recognised the chief as the noted
“ Rain-in-the-Face.” He had seen him at Fort
Laramie, where, although he had played some
boyish pranks with the dignified old fellow—
Indians being obtuse to the chaff beloved by
the Anglo-Saxon race alone—he had pacified
him by presenting him with a scalping-knife.
He saw it at his girdle now, where it had not
probably been idle, if any wickedness were
going on around the wearer.

They questioned the prisoner, and as his life
was forfeit as an intruder’s, the council which
was held over him seemed rather a waste of
words. But old Rain begged his life under the
humiliating plea that he was only a boy—and a
very playful one, too—undeserving the blow, of
a warrior’s mace or hatchet. Those who had

“ in the wild west: 1

79

been thirsting for his blood consented to see
the matter in that light, but robbed him of
nearly everything in the dugout.

The snow came down upon the place, fortu¬
nately helping to keep it warm, for the boy’s
fire had been put out, and he had much diffi¬
culty in making it up anew and keeping off the
wolves, with the single revolver which was left
him.

In another month, however, Harrington
arrived. He had valorously made die double
journey, and brought an ox-team and ample
provisions. As he had only struggled through
the snow with much hardship, they had to be
reconciled to remaining there until the thaw.

When it came, the waggon, not sledge, with
which Harrington had foresightedly provided
himself, was loaded up with the furs, on which
the wounded youth was pillowed tenderly. In
ten or twelve days, they reached the farm where
their “ outfit ” had been furnished, and where it
now was paid for in furs (such is the trustfulness
and helpfulness on the border). Thence to
J unction City, where the rest was disposed of.
Cody went on to his home, crippled for the time
being, it is true, but having over a hundred

8o

BUFFALO BILL.

dollars cash as his share, to gladden the pater¬
nal home, from which it lifted a mortgage.

All hurts to bordermen are kill or cure.
With a rapidity which sufferers in city hospitals
never know, the broken limb mended, and the
crutches could be cast away. Cody was a whole
man again, and with his tireless activity, looked
about for something to be at.

The Pike’s Peak gold fever was raging (1859,
See.). He went to the mines and took a claim,,
but was much “ put upon ” by bullies because he
was the youngest man in camp. “ Gold-digging
is going to the dogs since milksops and babbies
are taking to it,” said the grumblers, for even
in so busy and hard-working a place as a gold¬
mining camp, there are soreheaded bears.
As Billy had made friends, the first serious,
move against him resulted in a melee, after
which several funerals took place.

To increase the unfounded enmity against
the boy-miner, and give it such basis as envy
would rate enough, he found a vein, “ struck it
rich,” as the saying goes. One morning his
rich “ claim,” of which the fame had spread, was
“jumped ”•—two men had literally jumped into
his pit, and he found them there when he came.

“IN THE WILD WEST? 81

They disputed his claim—swore they had once
staked it off, and had returned in time not to
be deprived of their pre-emption, and ordered
the owner to “ git out and git away.”

Cody’s friends met, and, deciding that the
intruders must be ousted by main force as they
had ejected him, accompanied him back to the
place to see fair play. The occupiers were
recognized as loafers who had, admittedly,
roamed about the camp some months, but never
had done any digging, there or elsewhere, un¬
less, peradventure, to “ bury their dead.”

The judgment was: “Now, you must git
out.”

But up came others of the ruffians’ kidney,
who opposed Billy and the honest miners. To
prevent a general battle, Cody suggested that
the fighting should be confined to him and his
adversaries originally concerned. He would
meet one after the other in revolver fight.
This proposition was accepted. The arrange¬
ment was, to place the men back to back, but
twenty paces apart; they to turn and fire at
the word.

Although there was an attempt to help the
ruffian in giving the signal unfairly, Billy’s shot

82 “BUFFALO BILL .”,

went off a little more quickly, and his man fell,
shot in the heart. His companion was stopped in
his career by being arrested as an escaped prison-
bird, by a government detective, and so ended
the quarrel over the Boy’s Claim. But the
blood spilt seemed to have spoilt the luck, for
the gold ceased to show. Billy sold out and
went home,

CHAPTER X.

FIRST EXPERIENCE AS A GUIDE.-THE SUSPICIOUS

CONDUCTOR,-THE EXCHANGE OF SHOTS WITH

A ROAD AGENT.—THE RENEGADE UNVEILED.—
THE NEW CAPTAIN OF SCOUTS.

When emigrants arrive by railway at the
confines of civilization and the untilled country
extends before them, illimitably were it not for
the Rocky Mountains in the remote distance, their
heart fails them in seeing the gigantic difficulty
of the way to their “New Eden” with much
cumbersome impedimenta and totally unen¬
lightened ignorance of the means to advance
a mile.

Besides the dangers from Indians and robbers
of their own colour, dangers large enough already
in their minds fed by preposterous fiction, those
Europeans who are practical farmers, are per¬
plexed mortally by the question of how to
water the draught beasts and shelter them-

84

BUFFALO BILL:

selves each night, saying nothing of the fresh
meat supply. .

On the frontier, therefore, at “ the jumping-
off place,” the point whence one takes the
portentous dive into the Vast Unknown Region,
a swarm of guides abounds. Theatrically
dressed, all their weapons, silver buttons, spurs,
gold-mounted whips, and the like, almost as
abnormally large as “ property ” articles in
pantomimes, the greater number seem burlesques
on the Roaring Ralph Stackpoles of the
minor stage and penny novelettes. These
are generally arrant humbugs, who scarcely
know a big-horn from a buffalo, or a mirage
from a lake, and they are more likely to keep
off an Indian squaw’s track than invite her
lord and master to single combat over the right
of way.

There is another kind, usually old men,
quiet, with that “ reserve force ” supposed to be
the characteristic of the modern fine gentleman,
who make engagements with the honest intention
of fulfilling them to the letter. They are veteran
hunters and trappers who have been on every
acre of ground they propose to lead the caravan
through ; they will die in defence of their

JN THE WILD west:

85

charges, like a dog, not even caring if their
memory is cherished by one of the strangers
whose lives they will have saved. The clear,
noble, straightforward nature of Natty Bumppo
dwells in them.

Buffalo Billy had determined to become such
a guide as these, and as a ’prentice hand he
offered himself in Leavenworth City. The very
position was tendered to him by a train captain.
This man’s party, consisting of thirty families,
had been delayed by the previously engaged
guide falling ill. Another was taken in his
place, but the master wanted to make assurance
doubly sure by having an assistant guide. He
liked the youth, although his juvenility was
against him, and from sound recommendation,
engaged him.

On the morning when the wheeled fleet sailed
westward, Bill Cody and his superior in guiding
met for the first time. Neither liked the other,
and the captain of guides remarked disparagingly
at the presentation of his associate :

“ Reckon he won’t amount to much ten mile
out on the prairie.”

Cody said nothing, but studied this sneering
gentleman narrowly. He gave the name of

86 “BUFFALO BILL

Roy Velvet, palpably a “ purser’s name,” but
that is nothing on the border where nicknames
often eclipse the ones given by godfathers. He
was good-looking, but seemed the victim of fast
living. He dressed foppishly for prairie work,
and showed as much extravagance as regards
small arms as an Albanian. He rode a superb
bay mare.

For a time all went well. The guide seemed
to know his craft; but after a bout of stormy
weather, there were such blunders as the camp
being set where water was not obtainable, a
“ dry ” camp, the track became bad for wheels,
Indians were allowed to surprise them, and so
on, until the old hands muttered that Mr. Velvet
had lost the way. At last the country became
almost impossible to traverse, and a large body
of Indians were their constant escort.

To make matters more alarming at this
juncture, Assistant Guide Cody had left the
train overnight. It is not very unusual for a
guide to leave camp, if all is going on well, in
order to scout on ahead, but he should give
notice of the intelligence to his chief, at all
events. He had taken great care to do nothing

IN THE WILD WEST.”

87

of the sort, for his suspicions of the guide’s
treachery had hourly increased.

On the previous night, noticing him surrep¬
titiously leave the encampment, he had followed
him with the utmost stealth. Velvet went to a
rendezvous too well chosen to allow the watcher
to approach within earshot, but he could see
that his superior confabulated with a figure in
Indian war-paint and feathers. When the
conference was finished and the two plotters
parted with a cordial shake-hands not much in
harmony with the courtesy of Mr. “ Lo! the
poor Indian,” Bill followed the plumed chief.
He had to ride hard over the prairie to do it,
and that a night chase of a red-skin on a dark
horse is a fair test of man-hunter’s craft, the
reader may be assured. On overtaking him,
an exchange of shots was immediate, the
pseudo-Indian fell fatally wounded and Cody’s
horse was killed. On investigation, the con¬
federate of Mr. Roy Velvet was found to be a
red-washed white man. Furthermore, the
victor recognized him as a former settler in the
neighbourhood of the Cody farm, who had gone
wrong through drink. In order to induce
•Cody to execute some little requests, he re-

BUFFALO BILL .”

vealed a staggering story of Mr. Velvet’s real
standing and intentions.

Velvet was by a wider known name one
“ Red ” Reid, a kind of captain-general of half-
breeds, renegade whites and lone Indians
expelled from their tribes. All these bad
spirits he joined at need to the highwaymen
who infested mail-coach routes and emigrant
trails, under the title of “road-agents,” and to
Indian bands. The white men commonly
disguised themselves as Indians in their
ventures in a force upon waggon trains.
Velvet, therefore, was the very man most
“wanted” by government detectives, since he
had not forborne stopping army service trains ;
and by state officers of justice for his destruc¬
tion of whole parties of emigrants.

On the next night Velvet had plotted to
have the party under his charge attacked in
camp, and everybody murdered.

Taking the dead outlaw’s horse, Cody
hastened to the camp in which Velvet had
lodged his trustful dupes. Billy marched
straight upon him and held him under fire
whilst he was secured. I f not so secured, he
would have shot him at the instant to prevent

IN THE WILD WEST.”

89

any possibility of the wily wretch’s escape.
When he was bound, the young man related
his discovery to Captain Denham; in fifteen
minutes the trial was over, and Reid the Rene¬
gade hanged up prominently, so that his allies
might see that the king-pin had dropped out of
the infernal machination. The attack took
place, but the forewarned emigrants repelled it;
sure enough, on searching the dead, several
white men were found under the Indian
colours.

The new chief guide, Cody, had the fortune
to carry the train clean through. He would
have been made sheriff of the new settlement
if he had accepted office, but he was content
with thanks and t full pay, and returned home
with a government train.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PONY EXPRESS.-SLADE “THE SLAYER.”-

QUICK WORK.-HOT WORK.—THE CLAUDE

DUVAL OF THE WEST.-SAVING THE COACH.

—LIGHTNING DRIVING.

“ The Pony Express ” was an “institution ”
of the Mid United States which served its pur¬
pose and then so quickly vanished that its title
hardly calls up more than the vaguest of
memories. When California was peopled mainly
by men from the Eastern seaboard cities, the
means of their receiving home news and sending
money to their families was a desideratum above
ordinary pecuniary consideration. The mail
route by steamship from New York to the
Isthmus of Panama, crossed by mules before
the railway was made, and thence to San Fran¬
cisco through the Pacific, had no rival but the
overland mail. This went from the Western
cities such as St. Louis or St. Joseph over the

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 91

prairie, desert, and mountains, to the mining
cities, mere camps and groups of sheds, of the
Golden State. Passengers were carried in
stage-coaches, specially constructed for roads
which no European would have classed among
highways ; and these coaches carried mails as
well as treasure. But merchants, and private
individuals, with intelligence of importance to
transmit, paid an extra fee in order to have
their letters go by “ Pony Express.”

The letters were written on the finest of bank
post, “ onion-peel paper,” and were carried by
riders, from point to point relayed, across the
uninhabited region. They went regularly, not¬
withstanding the weather; yet it is weather
with such variations and such intensity that a
meteorological bureau refuses the evidence of
those who have experienced it. At Fort Ben¬
ton, Montana, 60 degrees below zero has been
recorded—Arctic winter, indeed—and in the
Arid Belt the heat and dryness would parch a
water-melon into a pea in an hour’s exposure.
Then there are rain and hailstorms and snow¬
falls, all prodigious phenomena of nature ; land¬
slides which leave a mountain bereft of a third
of its altitude, sandstorms of a peculiarly cutting

92 “ BUFFALO BILL .”

kind, which wear away granite and basalt into
honeycombed fretwork. The prairie fires break
out spontaneously, as well as when accidentally
started by emigrants who throw down pipe-
lights in a five hundred acre square of tinder¬
like grass with the heedlessness of a city dweller
in a paved street, or designedly by the savages to
destroy budding fruit trees and ensure young
grass for the game. And rattlesnakes that leap
on horses and bite the rider ; and insects that
settle on him so that he enters the post-house
like an apiarian on whom the bees have
swarmed.

However, men were eager to do this, and
the Express Company did not accept every ap¬
plicant for office.

Buffalo Bill had found neither schooling nor
farming to his taste, and after a trip to Atchison
as assistant to Wild Bill, who ran a supply train
from Leavenworth for the Overland Stage Com¬
pany to the place before named, he volunteered
as a pony express rider.

The waggon-train contractor, Russell, gave
him a letter of introduction to the notorious
Alf. Slade, the overseer and stage-coach agent
for the Julesberg and Rocky Ridge Division of

11 IN THE WILD WEST i”

93

the mail line. His head-quarters were forty-
miles out west from Fort Laramie, at Horse¬
shoe, where Buffalo Billy found him and pre¬
sented the letter.

Slade was a panther in human shape, who
had killed a dozen men or so in rough-and-
tumble fights, most of these encounters with
fire-arms depending for success, bear in mind,
on the excellence and condition of weapons and
the extreme celerity in bringing them to bear
on the enemy. A man not killed outright was
popularly warranted in cherishing the vendetta,
so that a mortal aim was generally taken or the
fallen man would be finished on the spot.
Otherwise a blundering murderer would soon
have several recovered foes uniting to take his
life. Slade was reckoned a very daring fellow,
yet he died like a coward. But there is no
consistency in the conduct of these Western
desperadoes : they are capable of meannesses
which are too despicable to record, and yet, at
an emergency, have shone out like heroes—as
witness the rough and tough “ Bitter Root
Bill,” who fought the great fire which nearly
destroyed the mining town, Old Helena City,
Montana, twenty years ago. He stood on a

94

'•BUFFALO BILL:'

steaming roof, under which were the provisions
and powder, without which the ruined miners
would have been defenceless in the winter,
keeping the blankets, which carpetted the
roof, wet with water passed up by a chain
of men, his form shrouded in smoke, and
every now and then disappearing in a sheet
of flame.

They are of the Rob Roy type, too good for
banning, and not good enough to be unreservedly
blessed.

Slade examined the volunteer critically,
deemed him too young for the work which wore
out great grown men rapidly, but finally took
him on, since his “record” as “ Buffalo Billy ”
was already current on the frontier.

Next day Billy was given a seventy mile
trail, from Red Buttes on the North Platte
River to Three Crossings on the Sweet Water,
a very long track, but the young rider did not
cavil. Before long, he came through “ on
time ” so certainly that his reputation began to
expand in this new line. All the rider was
asked to do was to come through on time: if
he delivered his mail-bag safely, it was little
moment if he had bullets and arrows in him, or

IN THE WILD WEST.”

95

if the horse he^ode in was not the company’s
on which he had left the last station. More
than one Eastern merchant has commented
upon his advice from a San Francisco corre¬
spondent being contained in an envelope cleft
through cleanly or red-stained, and has irritably
condemned the company whose employes had
dirty fingers and sharp thumb-nails : it was
the stab of a bowie-knife and the red rust
was a blood-drop from a postboy’s heart, that
is all.

One day when Billy stopped at the station
to hand over his mail to the next man, he found
him dead, killed in some private affair, and he
volunteered to ride out his run—only five-and-
eighty miles in addition to his accomplished
seventy-five! Moreover, he got in ahead of “the
scheduled time,” and, thereupon, turning back,
reached Red Buttes in due time. A ride
without rest of three hundred and twenty odd
miles, at an average of fifteen miles an hour!
The company awarded him a purse of gold for
this feat, and he was esteemed the “ Boss,” or
foremost of their riders, a high recompense in
fame after only a few months’ riding.

The Indians, in . their ideas about their

96

'BUFFALO BILL .”

property in hunting grounds, p^fticularly detest
through routes of the white men’s communica¬
tion. The telegraph and railway follow the
waggon roads and express messengers’ tracks,
and all conduce to preventing the great
periodical migrations of game north and south.
Hence the pony express service was always
menaced by them, no matter what their tribe,
and often were its riders attacked. They had
little chance of escape except by running the
gauntlet, as the Indians rarely fall on a fleet
rider except w r hen they can surround him with
an overwhelming force.

A party of them had stormed a mail station
and murdered the postmaster. They went
into ambuscade at a little distance by Horse
Creek. Thanks to a miracle, Bill Cody rode
through them almost before he knew he was
waylaid, and he little feared their chase until
he observed that two of them were gaining on
him, and dropping the others. A pony express
rider is dressed as compactly as possible, and
has nothing to divest himself of to lessen
weight, so that all the young man could do was
to use whip and spur on his horse. But the
two reds had large horses, such as are called

•IN THE WILD WEST!

97

“Americans,” in contradistinction to the under¬
sized native mustangs, or ponies.

One of the twain soon forged ahead of the
other, showing that his horse, a roan, was much
superior to the second, for he was not forcing
it. Meanwhile Cody’s had become shaky, and
as it would never do to fall with it, “ the trouble ”
had to be settled at once. He stopped abruptly,
wheeled, and fired with his ready revolver on this
red man, who seemed by his feathers to be a
chief. He was killed outright, before he could
stir a finger. The horse threw him off, and
Billy caught the rein. To mount and fly were
an easy matter, but the mails on his saddle
were dearer than life. He alighted and was
hastily making the transfer, when the second
savage dashed up and knocked off the rider’s
cap with a bullet.

The pony rider’s two horses kept his hands
full, but his own failing steed served him as a
target to a second ball, which removed him out
of his way. With two revolver shots, the
second Indian received his quietus.

But now the other redskins appeared in
view.

Cody cut the girths and took away his saddle

9 8

BUFFALO BILL:'

upon the roan, and raced thence before the
shots could reach him. At the station, he did
not find the shelter he expected, for the post¬
master had been killed, as already stated, and
he had to keep on in flight. He arrived at no
point of safety until Plontz Station, where he
came in ahead of time—a troop of scalp-taking
savages at one’s rear forming the sharpest of
goads!

The Indians continued to be annoying and
were not always so unlucky as this time : they
killed many riders and station-masters, running
off the relay horses and burning the cabins. It
is true, the guardians usually had tunnels to
caves which they defended stubbornly, and
their lives cost the enemy dear; but the
company lost their buildings, stores, and horses
all the same. Of course, the stage-coaches
received their share of hostile attention, and the
killing of passengers had a tendency to earn
the line a bad name.

The white banditti were less injurious to the
pony rider than the reds, as they only robbed
the mail for valuables, and left the boy with his
private property intact.

The most noted of the highwaymen in Cody’s

IN THE WILD WEST 1 ”

99

time was a rogue with the distinguishing and
quite Western gallantry of Claude Duval
towards the fair sex. He always let a woman
go free, and he was wiser still in serving • poor
men in the same way, for the penniless man
usually is a tiger before he will let that which
he hath not be taken away, so to say. This
polite fellow had been nicknamed “the Cavalier”
by some back-country journalist, who had seen
some likeness in him—in his broad-brimmed felt
hat, velvet breeches tucked into black leather
boots, and rakish air—to the typical Prince
Rupert.

As the pony riders, in return for their not
being personally molested, commonly yielded to
the Cavalier’s searchings, he had believed this
conduct a rule of the road without any exception.
Bill Cody, however, proved the exception. He
resisted when he was made to stand, and only
delivered a bullet which disturbed the natural
arrangement of flesh, bones and ligaments in the
Claude Duval’s arm. In reprisal his horse was
shot. He was let pass, but warned that if he
showed fight another time he would be killed.

For a period Cody eluded this gang, but
then, when the road-agents all but despaired of

BUFFALO BILL!

IiJO

bringing him to a halt, he was no longer seen
on the road, and the rumour ran that he had
been taken off that division and put on else¬
where. As none of the boys cared to take
his post, it being so ticklish a journey, there
threatened to be a gap in the continuity of
messengers. But, at the last moment, the
daughter of one of the horse-watchers volun¬
teered, probably on account of the Cavalier’s
fame for gallantry, and, the company gladly
accepting the offer, she carried the mails until a
man should present himself.

It was putting the Ladies’ Highwayman to a
costly and hazardous test, but he maintained his
credit. On his gang halting the mounted
Atalanta, he admired her appearance and her
spirit, and assured her that she had the freedom
of the road so far as he and his band were con¬
cerned. No doubt, he knew that the company
would take advantage of his leniency and confide
jewels and important bank-drafts to her, for
he seemed to redouble his energy in stopping
all the other riders and the coaches. The
company had already offered a handsome re¬
ward for his apprehension, on conviction, but
now they issued bills of veritable blood-money.

“IN THE WILD WEST.” ioi

—the augmented reward would be paid “ dead
or alive.”

In the meanwhile the threatened man lived
well, and even found time amid his business
engagements and sprees in gambling hells of
the nearest mushroom “ cities,” to carry on one
of the strangest courtships on the tablets of
history. He would often meet the girl pony-
rider, and ride along with her at speed, making
a circuit around the post-houses and rejoin her,
after the change of horses, for some miles again.
Whoever had seen the pair galloping on in the
night, like Dick Turpin and Luke Rookwood,
would have believed in a ghostly rider and
Satan, or a guilty thing haunted by his victim’s
image.

The Cavalier acted up to his name ; he could
talk glibly, and he witched the female post-boy
with eloquent speech as well as with noble
horsemanship. At length the nocturnal rides
and sweethearting culminated in a declaration
—still on horseback, much like a scene of
double-acting in the circus ring the Cavalier
told her that he had learned to love her above
any other of her sex, that he had his gains,
hidden in the mountains, and that he would;

102 “BUFFALO BILL .”

give up his evil career if she would share the
rest of his life and the treasure he had wickedly
earned. Still riding, but coyly reining in, the
blushing horsewoman said it was so very sudden
and unexpected, that she must speak to her
papa, that she had never been in love before—
and away she darted like the timid fawn which
she appeared. Again the Cavalier met her,
and, ever on the go, she confessed she had
found out what her mamma would say, and
they agreed, at the pace of a mile in two
minutes, that their hearts beat as one, and
that nothing but death should them part, and
so on.

Settling down to business after this prelimi¬
nary act of Cupid on Horseback, the two
arranged to quit the country together. The
female post-boy told of a night when she would
have a quantity of “ greenbacks ” and other
valuables quite portable in her charge, for the
company’s paymaster at one end of the route.
The highwayman was to bring his choicest
treasure, stolen jewelry and cash in his saddle¬
bags. He was also to have double relays of
horses all along their road to Mexico, where
they were to have a ranch, and live virtuously,

“IN THE WILD WESTI

103

with occasional Apache scalp-hunting expedi¬
tions—the Mexican state government paying
two hundred dollars a scalp—horse stealing
and running off of cattle.

They met. Before starting on their final ride,
which was to end at the hymeneal altar, the
bride elect asked her beloved to alight and
tighten her saddle-girths. In this case he did
“ buckle to,” but only to feel the cold ring of a
revolver mouth pressed to his forehead, and to
hear :—

“You’re my prisoner. Hands up. Resist
and I shall kill you.”

Meanwhile the bandit’s horse had run a little
way, but was checked with a jerk, for the
thoughtful female post-boy had hooked the
rein§ on her saddle.

The Cavalier had tried to believe it was all
a joke—it was, but not with the aim he would
have preferred. He had to give up his arms
and march on before the strange. young woman
into the station, where a crowd was awaiting
them. The faithless beauty was simply our
friend Billy Cody in a riding habit; he had no
moustache yet, his complexion was no darker
than many a frontier woman’s, and, in the

104

“ BUFFALO BILL .”

saddle, as his height was much in the limbs, it
did not appear.

The great road-agent was tried for his mani¬
fold crimes, and met his fate on the gallows.

This was a public service, and one to the
company great enough to have won the young
man a pension for retiring upon ; but still he
remained at pony riding, alone, frequently under
fire, upon the seventy-five mile route, but un¬
scathed as though he bore a charmed life.

One day he perceived the stage coach tearing
along at full speed of its six horses, with nobody
on the box. The driver had been shot dead by
Indians, but still retained the reins in his cold
hands where he had fallen on the foot-board.
The same villains who had struck this blow,
but forbore to follow it up, in order to catch
the express rider in an ambush, in a canyon, or
break in the level ground, now rode out after
him. He had haply gone around this gully
instead of through it, and had thereby saved
his life, at least temporarily. But few assurance
companies would have taken his as a “ good ”
life at that juncture, for this was the situation.
The stage coach was followed by three Indians,
then came Billy, who was chased in turn by

"IN THE WILD WEST : 1

i°S

upwards of a dozen of the red children of the
plains.

Billy was upon a sorrel mare, good enough
to bring him up within range of the hindmost
of the three, whose pony he sent to death with
a shot, and the rider went to grass with a
violence that stunned him so he never moved.
Another shot wounded one of the pair, so that
they were frightened off. When Cody came up
beside the coach, he found five terribly alarmed
passengers therein, of which number two were
women. They did not know what had happened
to the driver, faithful in death.

Without stopping the coach-horses or his
own, Billy scrambled upon the vehicle with his
post-bags, and relieved the driver of the “ lines,”
or reins.

He knew that a box of gold, in dust, “ scales ”
and nuggets, was in the boot, and he meant to
save this for the company.

Meanwhile, his horse, relieved of his weight,
and trained, like all the express ponies, to keep
the trail and run into the station (sometimes
they have carried their insensible masters into
the stable), ran onwards in advance.

Cody had learnt during his teamster experi-

IO 6 11 BUFFALO BILL ."

ence to drive, even six horses, and it follows
that he was perfectly able to manage the three-
pair and coach. On the prairie, he maintained
the lead, but on the rising ground of some hills,
the Indians came up a-pace. The road was not
merely bad, too, in places, but positively peril¬
ous. In road-making, the Americans leave a
great deal for the skill and dexterity of drivers,
with a margin for the luck which dare-devils
often enjoy.

At the ridge the pursuers came near enough
to fill the back of the coach with arrows, but
here Cody plied the whip so briskly that the
animals jumped away, and down the slope
the whole concern flashed, swaying on the
leather braces as if to fling out the passengers,
who believed they had no choice but thus to
be brained or by the redmen. “ Lightning
driving,” though this might be accounted, there
was no spill, no loss, no mishap whatever, and
in half-an-hour the station was attained.

The company hereupon considered that
Cody’s driving was more valuable to them
than his riding, and promoted him from the
Pony Express saddle to the box of the Over¬
land Mail coach.

CHAPTER XII.

OVERLAND STAGE-COACH DRIVING.-A TRAGIC

AND A LUDICROUS ADVENTURE.-THE ROAD-

AGENTS CONFOUNDED.

The stage-coach drivers in the West and
California were exceptional men; over and
above ability as coachmen for three pair of
horses, often badly or, at least, inadequately
broken-in from the Wellerian point of view,
they had to be provided with experience in
all kinds of weather and Indian signs ; cool ;
taciturn on business matters, since they were
custodians of important treasures and notable
citizens whose ransom would have enriched
the Robin Hoods of the Rockies, and yet
affable when they condescended from their
altitude of dignity to chat with common mor¬
tals ; replete with courage, “ nerve,” skill in
using deadly weapons, and handiness in repair¬
ing damages to the harness and conveyance.

108 “BUFFALO BILL."

Among these rare charioteers the celebrated
Ben Halliday whom “Mark Twain" has im¬
mortalised, was esteemed the king, but, from
a daring drive, down a mountain side where
road for even a cat-a-mountain there never had
been, to elude an ambushed party of highway¬
men, Bill Cody was called “the Prince of
Reins.”

These coachmen are such privileged beings
that they play practical jokes on even high and
distinguished “globe-trotters.” Ben Halliday’s
upon Horace Greeley, the eccentric editor of
the New York Tribune and once candidate for
the Presidency of the United States, has gone
the rounds of the English world's press. We
give one of Bill Cody which shows to what
an extent the Overland coachman carries a
joke.

On one of his trips eastward he had a whole
load of foreign tourists. They were mostly
Frenchmen who were seeing the Wild West
with the spectacles of M. Sardou in his “ U ncle
Sam,” and their formidable letters of introduc¬
tion had led so many officials to sprinkle rose¬
water on the skunks and pull the teeth and
claws of so many grizzly bears that they were

“IN THE WILD WEST" 109

inclined to be-little the unalterable horrors and
dangers of the never-cultivated territories.

Cody had no sooner heard a specimen of their
talk, in broken English, blaming everything
American for all sorts of reasons, mostly con¬
tradictory, and comparing European scenery
and personages to the depreciation of all before
them that they deigned to remark upon, than
he made up his mind to astonish them out of
their fool’s paradise at the earliest opportunity.

They began the battle by sacr/-ing him, be¬
cause they considered the average pace at which
the vehicle was proceeding as excessively slow.
They alluded to the diligences on the royal road
making the better time, which, possibly, they
did. For there is little resemblance between a
macadamized highway and the Dead Mule
Trail of Idaho, for example. When the allusions
fined down to pointed reflections on the bad
driver and the slow horses, Cody’s back bristles
began to arch up, so to say.

He was not the worst driver on that route,
as we have led the reader to infer, and the
horses in the present relay were wild ones only
partially broken in for stage-coaching. When
they were put to, Buffalo Billy had remarked to

IIO

BUFFALO BILL?

the ostlers that he would show the foreigners
what he knew about driving. When he had
the mountain ride before him to descend, he let
the horses race down. This was enough to
make the frightened passengers believe him
deranged, but when he took the lamps out of
their sockets and smashed them in a throw at
the leaders to accelerate the already terrific
pace, they besought him to stop in the fear they
would every one be killed. All the answer
obtained was the strange one, very calmly
spoken to come from a lunatic :

“ Keep cool, gentlemen! sit still and see how
bad drivers and slow horses stage it in the
Rocky Mountains.”

To conclude the scare, Bill fired off his
revolver. At the station, the stablemen threw
open the doors to the furious horses, who dashed
in, tearing off the coach roof and scattering the
luggage ; the passengers were all knocked about
and bruised. Billy had ducked, like a bargee
going under a low canal-bridge, and escaped
untouched.

He went on with an empty coach, for the
“ Monsieurs ” remained at the station hotel, to put
down in their books of Impressions de Voyage

“/,V THE WILD WEST.” Hi

their mad drive down a mountain slope. The
rough joke was laughed at by the injudicious,
however much the other sort grieved ; and how¬
ever much, too, the perpetrator deserved cen¬
sure, the company did not visit him with it.

As the “ holding up ” of a coach-load of
passengers in the West differs in some features
from the process of Italian brigands with their
“ bocca a terra —face to the earth ! ” which is not
unfamiliar to European tourists, let us describe
the American mode, as practised upon Buffalo
Billy’s charges. He had volunteered to drive
over a very dangerous road where the highway¬
men seemed the more daring and unscrupulous
since the somewhat gentlemanly “ Cavalier ”
had been removed from their captaincy.

On the first trip nothing occurred, but on the
second, at a point where the vehicle had to
proceed at a walking pace by reason of the
difficulty of the way, three or four masked men
jumped out of the brush, and levelling guns at
the driver and passengers, ordered “ Hands
up! ” At such a moment, eye-witnesses aver
that the look point-blank into a shot-gun causes
an aberration of vision, thanks to which the
muzzle appears as large as* the main drainage

pipe in a capital city, and awful horrors leer
from its incalculable depths. At all events,
the command is generally obeyed without a
murmur, as upon thi^ occasion, and so the next
order for everybody to step out, still with the
empty hands held in the air, to the roadside,
where they form a line. One of the “ agents ”
searches them methodically, whilst two over¬
awe the file by flanking it and facing it at
angles to enfilade it. Sometimes one or two
obstinate fellows get out of the coach on the
other side and convert it into a barrier, firing
at the rogues under it, through the wheels,
which does not add to the comfort of the more
peaceably inclined who are among the banditti.
We repeat, Billy allowed the operation to be
carried out without even a verbal protest, very
unlike him, and the robbers took away the gold-
box and complimented him on being a “daisy.”
Border Chesterfields have not a word of
heartier commendation in their energetic but
limited vocabulary. Since Buffalo Billy, in
spite of his exploit as regards the Cavalier and
the plunge down the mountain-side, had re¬
lapsed into the category of coachmen who
winked at the highwaymen's little eccentricities,

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

13

his comrades grew equally as obliging, and the
profession of road-agent became a sinecure.
The captains looked upon the line as a benefice,
and, whilst one, who retired, received a bonus
from his lieutenant and successor, another sent
his daughter to learn to be a prima donna in
Italy on the strength of his drawing so much a
year on the Overland Stage Company.

Meanwhile, the corporation had heart enough
to offer five thousand dollars for the capture of
this band and its audacious leader.

Reward or no reward, the rascals continued
the terror of the road until, one day, Bill Cody’s
coach left its station without one man having
the temerity to travel by it; all the passengers
were ladies, who perhaps expected the immu¬
nity for their sex enjoyed in the days of “ the
Cavalier.”

At the common stopping-place of the
brigands, they called the stage-coach to halt,
and appeared with the usual summons. But,
this time, there were no men to lift their
unarmed hands.

“ Women ! why, what are they all ? ” queried
the chief of the road agents ; “ schoolmistresses
for the Lick Institute ?”

M

BUFFALO BILL .”

“ Ask them ? ” returned Billy, laconically.

When the half-a-dozen villains rode up to the
stage door to hand out “the schoolma’ams,”
the coachman presented a revolver and began
shooting with the signal cry :

“ Out and at ’em, boys ! ”

It was but an expansion of his ruse with the
Cavalier; the supposed women were stalwart
fellows, well-armed, who killed or captured
"most of the ruffians ; the captives were lynched,
and so that gang was “ rubbed out.”

The reward was divided among the coach¬
men, Cody receiving the lion’s share as the
projector of the stratagem.

His coaching experience terminated in 1861
on his hearing of his mother’s failing health,
which sad news drew him straightway home.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT.—BUFFALO RUNNING.
-OLD “ BRIGHAM.”-THE TRIAL AT MEAT¬
MAKING.-WILL COMSTOCK.

“ The buffalo is almost extinct,” has said our
hero ; and he has borne an important part in
the extermination, although, it must be added,
he killed loyally like a true hunter. In the
memory of living pioneers, the bison was to be
seen in countless herds, anywhere—if a grass
district—between the Yellowstone and the Red
River of Texas. . Too late there is a regret
expressed that attempts are not made to
domesticate a breed of cattle which might
prove as useful to America as the East Indian
buffalo to its country. The bulls are not as
powerful as one of the domestic species run
wild, and the cows are tractable and yield richer
milk than almost any farmyard stock.

As long as the Indians and the comparatively

BUFFALO BILL ..”

116

few white hunters slew them only for meat and
hide, there seemed no diminution of their illimit¬
able number; but, after the great Across the
Continent Railways were commenced, and the
demand for hide and bones could be met from
this quarter, thanks to this same means of trans¬
port over iron rails, a different course of opera¬
tions was planned.

The hunter became a mere slaughterer.

Supplied with the newest rifle, which kills at
a thousand yards, he would approach a herd of
grazing buffalo within easy range, perhaps half
the extreme, or less. He fires at a cow and
aims to put the bullet in just behind the fore
shoulder, so that she will be some four or five
minutes dying. The cow will usually be accom¬
panied by her young, and the two-year-old
calves, which curiously and surprisedly stand
by her to the last, whilst a bull is very apt to
parade round her, snorting defiance afr the
slayer, if not too stupid to understand it was an
unnatural death.

The second shot is also at a cow, and the
herd continue to stare confoundedly on the
dead and dying, or keep on grazing.

After the cows, the calves are slain, and the

“IN THE WILD WEST?

17

bulls last. They are the most difficult to kill
from their wariness and the toughness of their
coats. These are less in value than the cow’s,
although more than the calves’, rating them
thus : bullhide, one dollar eighty cents to two
dollars ; cowhide, three dollars twenty-five
cents ; and calfskin (two-year-old), one to one
and a half dollars. Since the fashion—of
English origin—to decorate dwelling-house
halls, and dairyshops with buffalo horns
mounted, these lead to poor “ Mr. Bull ” being
in greater request.

The hunter has assistants who execute the
cutting up, flaying, and carriage of the results
to the nearest railway station, the whole being
systematised with that attention to minutiae to
save time which characterises English manu¬
facturing industries and American business
enterprises of magnitude.

Their calm, almost noiseless, process of
slaughter is diametrically opposed to the old-
time buffalo hunt of Indians and white men.

These, mounted on ponies trained for the
work, and often taking delight in it, as is
asserted to be the case with decoy birds (on
less sufficient evidence), assail a herd of buffalo

BUFFALO BILL .”

118

so as to start it on a run in panic. The buffalo
ponies of the red men are classed apart from
the war ponies, and treated even better than
they are. Their perfection is attained when
they will observe the double duty of approach¬
ing the buffalo and yet'^fbtecting the rider, for a
buffalo has horns which, when not spoilt by his
rooting up things, have enabled him to kill a
grizzly bear. He will keep in a line with the
foe, but converging with his insensibly, turn¬
ing as he does, but ever creeping more closely
until his master can get the fatal shot in. He
appears to share his glee at the monster’s fall,
but he continues to run on after another, and
so on, until dead beat.

A buffalo drive of this sort, but for the dust
rising in volumes, would be a splendid sight
from a mountain height or a balloon. There
would be seen the fleet jackass rabbit flying
before the unknown terror, other small deer in
its train, and at length the foremost buffalo ;
then, the mass, huddled so that thousands move
as one body. On the flanks, at the rear,
ofttimes nipped up among the herd, like vessels
in a closing ice-crack in the Polar seas, the
mounted and plumed hunters, as maddened

“IN THE WILD WEST."

!I9

with the fever of carnage as the beasts with
that of dread. Under the thundering hoofs,
the ground is levelled, sward cut up and
pounded into an indefinable jelly, prairie-dog
villages ground out of existence. The plain
behind this living avalanche is seen brown or
grey, dotted with the dead black corpses, and a
few wolves sneaking about, afraid to touch the
superabundance of ensanguined, palpitating
flesh. Over all, the dust still afloat and a
smell, sin generis, of oiled savages, the slaughter
house, heated horses, upturned earth and
hacked herbage.

If the line of flight force the wretched
creatures into a natural trap—as a deep crack—
so much the better; but, usually, the hunters
content themselves with all the beasts their
marksmanship and stock of ammunition enable
them to bring down. As long as there is an
arrow in the quiver (or in the left hand or
girdle, more often) or a bullet in the pouch
(in the mouth, again, more often), the slaying is
kept up. After the excitement is over, the
necessary operations of skinning and dressing
and drying the meat are proceeded with. The
extreme fatigue is paid for with a feast on the

BUFFALO BILL.'

choice portions of the buffalo, the tongue,
hump, &c.

In the variation to the latter way, the hunter
lightens his dress and his horse’s caparisons to
the least weight obtainable. He plunges into the
fray with as much mastery of himself as possible,
singling out the finest-conditioned head, wasting
no balls, and, instead of keeping the frightened
game on the run, executing the cowboy’s device
to check a stampede of cattle, namely “milling,”
or causing the outermost of the herd to go
round and round in ^a circle, and so imprison
the others in the centre, where they, too,
catching the infection of vertigo, trace rings con¬
centrically. This is, in miniature, the “ buffalo
surround ” which a large number of Indians
execute to keep the herd under command until
enough have been killed to provide the winter s
supply of animal food.

In the spring of 1867, William F. Cody
received the offer of the Kansas Pacific Railroad
Company to accept a supply of meat. It was
for their platelayers along the line in building.
The terms were so handsome (five hundred
dollars a month), that Mr. Cody undertook it
eagerly. He had married a Southern lady,

11 IN THE WILD WEST.” 121

after a romantic courtship which will be related
in a fitter place, and was father to a little girl,
Arta, born at Leavenworth. The claims of
family spurred him into carrying out this con¬
tract to the letter.

The railway company’s labourers numbered
over a thousand, and the air of the prairies
sharpens the appetite, as if that of the Anglo-
Saxon and Milesian navvy ever needed a whet!
The amount of fresh meat required for their
daily dinner-table was appalling, and besides,
the Indians, always detesting the railway, were
constantly warring against its advance and
maintenance. Horse-thieves and other pirates
of the prairies swarmed in the houses of re¬
freshment, springing up and moving onwards
with the army of workmen, and these would
meddle with the meat-contractor until themselves
made “ meat ” of.

Under this arrangement the buffalo of Western
Kansas went down like fur and feather at a
battue ; in one season Bill’s Garagantuan “ bag ”
was of nearly five thousand head—to be accu¬
rate, four thousand eight hundred and twenty.

In spite of this being a feat never before
approached, let alone equalled—and, for that

“BUFFALO BILL.’

matter, never since paralleled—“ Buffalo Bill,”
as he was more emphatically entitled, was
challenged to compete in killing this animal
with the shaggy mane. The challenger was
the noted frontiersman described so fully and
praised so highly by Gen. Custer in his articles
in the Galaxy Magazine and in his subsequent
book : Will Comstock.

The match was thoughtfully planned out, and
numbers of spectators, ladies included, came out
on the prairie on horseback to see who would
win the five hundred dollars’ stake and the title
of Champion Buffalo Killer. There was at that
time a perfect rage throughout the United
States for championship matches—running,
walking, spelling, pie-eating (!), and so on.
The terms were that the contestants were to
hunt, on horseback of course, during eight
hours from a certain hour in the morning.

A herd having been found, the two hunters
proceeded towards it at dawn, followed by the
throng of spectators at a respectful distance ; for
the consent of the buffalo had not been obtained,
and the sudden appearance of the bison in amid
the distinguished guests might have been at¬
tended with more untoward incidents than

IN THE WILD WEST.”

123

when Reynard doubles back and crosses the
road under the carriage-wheels of the hunt
visitors.

Comstock fade a fine, trained horse, and was
armed with a repeating rifle often used in
buffalo hunting. His opponent carried a
Springfield rifle, “ Lucretia,” and rode his cele¬
brated horse “ Brigham,” exceptionally well-
trained for the work, as we shall see.

Brigham was the successor in the list of the
Cody stud of the more noted “ Buckskin Joe.”
It may be mentioned here that all horses with
cream or tawny coats are called Buckskin, or
simply Buck, the likeness to untanned deerskin
being clear.

Equally confident of victory, both hunters
dashed into a herd, followed by their well-
mounted markers. The herd divided and left
each to exhibit his skill without any fear of
crossing shots.

There were three runs. In the first the
score stood, Cody, 38, Comstock, 23 ; in the
second, out of a smaller herd, 18, 14. After a
rest corresponding to the luncheon hour at
cricket matches, the settling round was acted
out. For this, Cody, relying on Brigham, rode

124

“BUFFALO BILL:'

him bareback ! The final score stood, Cody, 13,
Comstock, 9, which made the grand total to
Cody, 69, and to Comstock, 46.

Cody’s title to the championship in buffalo
hunting has not since been disputed.

Comstock returned to his regular employ¬
ment as an army guide, and escaped some
dreadfully “ close calls ” in actions, only to die
miserably in a trap laid by Indians—all the
more puzzling to understand as he knew their
character thoroughly.

The little episode which we touched upon in
Cody’s youth, of his riding a buffalo bull into
camp with the herd at its tail, was repeated in
1S68. He was the scout of a company of
U.S. dragoons on the Solomon River, whose
captain would not send out a waggon for
game in prevision of its being killed. The
hunter found a herd, headed it so as to turn it
in the direction he desired, and drove it, like so
many domestic cattle, into the military camp,
where they were killed under the commander’s
own eyes. This, he acknowledged, was “ self¬
delivering the fresh-killed meat.”

One of Cody’s friends, comrades and business
associates, was Major Frank J. North. The

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

125

Major was a famous guide and Indian fighter.
In the war on the plains with the savages, he
rendered the Government inestimable services
as chj^f of the Pawnee scouts. These hered¬
itary foes of the Sioux were, naturally, of
great utility, and their trustworthiness could be
depended upon, as their fate would be worse
than the soldiers’ if they let themselves be
captured.

Once when the Major and Buffalo Bill—who,
with “ Texas Jack,” was a frequent companyero
on hunts—came for prairie sport, the Pawnees
objected that white men could not keep their
tongues still on a hunt any more than squaws,
and that the guest would only scare the game
away. In order to show that he was good for
something besides powwowing (chatter), Buffalo
Bill killed forty-eight buffalo in thirty minutes,
and became the Pawnees’ brother.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE WAR. - SCOUTING. - “ THE LONGHAIRED

SCOUT.” — WHIPPING THE SIOUX SINGLE-
HANDED.

The war record of William F. Cody runs as
follows :—1861, at frontier posts as scout-guide
and message-bearer between military posts.
1862, scout and guide to the Ninth Kansas
Cavalry in the Kiowa and Comanche Country,
Arkansas, and Southern Missouri; he was one
of the legion of Kansas rangers, called from
their Zouave breeches “ the Red-legged
Scouts.” 1863, attached to the Seventh
Kansas Cavalry, he went through the campaign
in Tennessee, Missouri, and Mississippi, as well
as Kansas, participating in several battles,
notably that of Tupelo. He became a non¬
commissioned officer. 1866, with the cele¬
brated Indian fighter, Gen. E. A. Carr ; it was
a terrible winter, but Cody carried despatches

IN THE WILD WEST 1 ”

127

to and fro in dangerous tracts to the content of
his officers. 1868, scout and guide to the
chief corps in the great Indian war. 1869,
marched with the famous “ Fighting Fifth ”
Cavalry, and fought in the battles of Bearer
Creek and Spring Creek. 1869, chief scout
and guide to the Republican River Expedition
against the Cheyennes, and in the pursuit along
the Niobrara he nearly lost his life among
the Sioux at Prairie Dog Creek in September;
he was at Fort McPherson when the expedition
disbanded. With the Fifth Cavalry again, he
went on the Arizona expedition, and was dis¬
tinguished for gallantry in the Red Willow and
Birdwood Creek actions. 1876, with Gens.
Miles and Carr in the Sioux War and the Big
Horn and Yellowstone Expedition. After the
Great Civil War, Mr. Cody had been honour¬
ably discharged.

His personal adventures during the conflict
were memorable, and, in one instance, was to
have an important effect upon all his subsequent
life. This was his romantically-made acquaint¬
ance with his wife of the future.

Of this two accounts exist. Colonel Judson,
in a melange of fact and fiction, relates a rescue

128 “BUFFALO BILL.”

by Buffalo Bill of a young lady in the streets
of St. Louis from a crew of Federal soldiers,
intoxicated by the vile liquor considered good
enough for the army.

The other account,—-one, we believe, better
to be depended upon,— comes from the pen
of Colonel Ingraham. We quote his narra¬
tion :—

“In the second year of the war, Cody be¬
came one of the famous ‘ Red Legged Scouts,’
formed of the most noted rangers of Kansas. He
was sent to guide a train to Denver, but upon
arriving there, learning of the severe illness of
his mother, he at once set off for home, going
the entire distance alone and making wonderful
time through a country infested with dangers.
To his joy, he found his mother still living, yet
failing rapidly, and soon after his arrival she
breathed her last, and he had lost his best, truest
friend, and the sad event cast a gloom over the
life of the young soldier. (1862.)

“ As one of his sisters had married some time
before, her husband took charge of the farm,
while Cody returned to the army and was sent
into Mississippi and Tennessee with his com¬
mand. But he did not relish military duty, for

" IN r THE WILD WEST.”

129

he had become too well accustomed to the free
life of the plains, and, resigning his position as
scout, started upon his return to the prairies.

“ While on the way he came in sight of a
pleasant farm-house, from which rose a cry for
help in the voice of a woman.

“ Cody saw five horses fastened to a fence on
the other side of the house; but this array of
numbers did not deter him when a woman
called for aid, and dismounting quickly, he
bounded upon the piazza, and was just running
into the door when a man came out into the
hall and fired at him, but fortunately missed
him. Bill instantly returned the fire, and his
quick, unerring aim sent a bullet into the man’s
brain.

“ At the shots a wilder cry came from within
for help, and two men dashed out into the hall,
and, seeing Bill, three pistols flashed together.
But Cody was unhurt, and one of his foes fell
dead, while springing upon the other he gave
him a stunning blow with his revolver that put
him out of the fight, and then bounded into the
room to discover an elderly lady and a lovely
young girl threatened by two huge ruffians, who
were holding their pistols to their heads to try

130 “BUFFALO BILL”

and force from them the secret of the hiding-
place of their money and valuables.

“ Seeing Bill, they both turned upon him,
and a fierce fight ensued, which quickly ended
in the killing of both ruffians by the brave
young soldier, who seemed to bear a charmed
life, for he was unhurt, though he had slain
four men in a desperate combat and wounded
a fifth.

“ Just then into the room dashed three men,
and their weapons were levelled at Buffalo
Bill, and right then and there his days would
have ended had it not been for the courage and
presence of mind of the lovely young girl, who
threw herself forward, to the youth’s great sur¬
prise, and cried out:

“ * Father ! Brothers ! don’t fire, for this man
is our friend.’

“ The old man and his sons quickly lowered
their rifles, while the former said :

'“A friend in blue uniform, while we wear
the grey ? ’

(The respective uniforms of the Federal and
Confederate armies, were blue and grey.)

‘ 1 am a Union soldier, sir, I admit, and I
was going by your home, heard a cry for help,

“IN THE WILD WEST 131

and found your wife and daughter, as I suppose
them to be, at the mercy of five ruffians, and I
was fortunate enough to serve them. But I will
not be made prisoner, gentlemen.’

“ Bill’s hands were on his revolvers and he
looked squarely in the faces of those in his
front, and they could see that he was a man
who meant what he said.

“ * My dear sir, I am a Confederate, I admit,
and this is my home ; but I am not the one to
do a mean action toward a Union soldier, and
especially one who has just served me so well
in killing these men, whom I recognize as jay-
hawkers, who prey on either side, and own no
allegiance to North or South. Here is my
hand, sir, and I will protect you while in our
lines.’

“ Cody grasped the hand of the farmer,
and then those of his sons, and all thanked
him warmly for the service he had done
them.”

The farmer, Frederici, vras captain of local
volunteers. This meeting decided Cody to
remain in the army, as its head-quarters were
at St. Louis, wherefrom he could often call
upon the young lady. Before the war ended,

F 2

132

BUFFALO BILL .”

he went back to Kansas, it was true ; but before
he was twenty-one, albeit a man to all appear¬
ance and quite so by actions, he returned to
his affianced. They were married at Farmer
Fredericks, and the happy pair went to Leaven¬
worth, where the bride was left with her new
sisters on the Cody farm.

The Benedict resumed government service,
but in the comparatively independent post of
scout.

Having in mind that the scout of an army
corps in Indian territory carries the safety of all
even more fully in the hollow of his hand than
the commanding officer himself, it will strike
with surprise that such a trust should be given
to a young man just of age. But the im¬
peratively exacted conditions are in rare men,
and age has little to do with it. One of the
finest scouts of Gen. Sherman’s celebrated
detached army, which executed the March to
the Sea, that is to say, across half the continent
in the rear of the northern Confederate lines to
the Atlantic, was a boy in his teens. This young
hero, “ Charlie ” Campbell, was but fourteen
when he was regularly appointed a scout. He
was a friend of “ Texas Jack,” a man who did

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

'33

not associate with braggarts and incompetent
fledglings.

The scout for an army on the Indians’ roving
ground has the more difficult part to play that
the soldiers cannot move with the savage’s
celerity, and, under the best of circumstances,
are so overburdened with caparisons and the
paraphernalia judged compulsory for the officers’
comfort, that their presence is long signalled
from afar upon the plains and in the mountains.
The scout, therefore, never expects anything
but a miracle to keep his column’s advance long
a secret, and has to redouble his precautions
and overcome the military man’s training
towards methodical slowness to take the alert
enemy by surprise. “ California Joe ” guided
Gen. Custer’s column of cavalry along a moun¬
tain ridge in the depth of winter in order to
surround and overwhelm a village of Indians
and accredit that officer with the victory of the
Wichita River. This was done, for the last
stage, in the night-time. Think of the won¬
drous knowledge of every rod of the ground—
ground rocky, wooded, channelled with torrents
and smothered in snow—required to lead a
troop of regular cavalry in darkness to a given

134

BUFFALO BILL.”

point in the wilderness, absolutely untracked
by men.

The scout, moreover, must always succeed.
He is in honour bound never to surrender.
If there be two or more, one is to carry the
intelligence to the main body, whilst the others
delay the pursuers even at the cost, of life.
Brother is to quit brother, father is to abandon
sons, lest, for the point of affection or fraternity,
the army be destroyed.

Bill Cody’s tripartite experience as an Indian-
fighter, marksman, and rider, made him almost
faultless from the outset.

Whilst attached to Fort Hayes, Cody the
scout heard the colonel commanding regret the
inability to make a raid on certain Indians
whose outrages deserved punishment, from the
non-arrival of a drove of government horses.

Cody voluntered to go and learn about them,
and hurry on the drovers, if they were to blame.
But not far from the fort, he struck upon a plain
trail : many hoofmarks, the rut made by the
lodge-poles dragging after ponies, and scraps of
warriors’ finery; an Indian village of some
importance was on the move.

Most men would have gone on about their

“IN THE WILD WEST!

135

business; but Buffalo Bill conceived a grand
and daring idea—foolhardy, indeed, to any save
One who was a host in himself. He followed
the trail till dusk, when he saw the tribe camped
at the head of a valley. At the other end was a
group of sentinels. Between them, in the
bottomland, the large drove of horses were
resting.; and cropping the evening meal.

Cody was riding Brigham, the horse that
won ‘him the buffalo-killing match, and he knew
he could be trusted not to whinny or neigh at
bemg* left alone. He went around to the least
defended mouth of the vale.

•There he dismounted and prepared to master
theifour watchmen by subtlety and strength;
not a shot ought to be fired on either side or
the whole design would miscarry

He had the materials for disguising himself
as an Indian, and he hastily painted up and
befeathered himself. He secreted his horse in
a dip of the ground and stole through the
under-brush to the valley-head for a final
examination.

The four sentries had picketted their ponies
together,, but they were not to be espied, so
cunningly were they concealed; probably re-

136

BUFFALO BILL .”

dining in the grass. The white man made a
short circuit so as to get down into the valley
within the line of the look-outs, and deliberately
walked towards them.

Presently he saw a head on a level with the
herbage. Although the man did not rise alto¬
gether, naturally taking the new-comer for a
chief, coming evidently from the camp to give
an order, Cody addressed him in his own
tongue in order to lull suspicion until he got
within arm’s reach and then grasped him. He
strangled him, and dropped him under his own
blanket.

The next man was called to him and was
stabbed to the death ; so fared the other two,
although the last was the most powerful, and
gave the ultimate victor, somewhat exhausted,
a terrible wrestling for the crowning triumph.

What nerved the scout was the perfect con¬
sciousness that the bands intended a massacre
along the border.

Meanwhile the five hundred warriors were
dreaming of the carnage he was determined on
averting.

Cody returned to his horse, mounted, rode
down into the valley between the camp and the

“IN THE WILD WEST:

i 37

horses, and started them towards the unguarded
mouth of the valley. Horses soon fall in with
the mass, and, once they were out upon the
prairie, the pace was quickened, and they were
“ stampeded ” almost as far as the fort in the
night. Leaving them’in a good pasture to re¬
cuperate, Cody went on to the fort, and besides
reporting his important capture, suggested their
being used to attack the Indians.

So those cavalry men who were awaiting
mounts, went out along with their fully provided
comrades and put their harness on the Indian
ponies. The three parties of a hundred riders
marched off to the camp, whilst the other horses
were taken to the fort stables.

During this morning’s work the Sioux had,
of course, discovered the removal of their
sentinels by death and of their horses by an
unknown hand, and were on the back track,
acknowledging their coup of attack on the
settlements was a failure. But the cavalry over¬
took and beat them, and forced them to sue for
mercy.

Ever after this single-handed feat, the Indians
designated Bill Cody Pa-e-has-ka , which, being
Interpreted, signifies the Longhair {-ed Scout).

138

BUFFALO BILL .»

As we have already alluded to the frequent
practice of white men, hourly the opponents of
Indians, wearing their hair uncut with a view of
taunting them to scalp them if they can, the dis¬
tinction in this epithet is not apparent, unless
that, by emphasis, Cody was held up as the
Long-haired Scout by pre-eminence.

In any case, the Indians hated him with
additional fervency, and spared no pains to kill
or capture him.

Once a number of army officers, impatient
beyond prudence, would not go from one to
another fort by the slow but well-escorted
waggon-train. To make their rashness the
greater, they had their wives, equally bent on
making the trip, as a terrible augmentation of
the bait to the savages. It is not in these
pages that can be repeated the awful tale of the
few white ladies who have been forced to be
the consort of a chief and finally cast off to be
the butt of the Indian women. English readers
will remember the parallel fate of daughters of
a high officer ki India who were put in the
harem of some native prince after the Mutiny,
and felt themselves so degraded that, in the
following years, when they allowed the news of

“IN THE WILD WEST."

139

their still living to reach their relatives, they
urged all hope to be abandoned of their ever
being seen in their old home again.

Bill Cody was engaged to guide this tempting
party, a dozen strong, and it started, after he
had conscientiously showed them the dangers
they braved, and, no doubt, privately informed
the officers that, in case of the Indians seeming
fair to capture them, they must kill their wives,
even if they had not the fortitude to kill them¬
selves, with the shot reserved by all army
officers on the frontier to prevent the inevitable
torture.

As was fully expected by the guide, the
Indians appeared. Two hundred of them
chased the twelve. The guide could not
appease the legitimate alarm, and did not
increase the bitterness of the self-reproaches at
their having left the fort without a fit escort.
He simply directed the well-mounted party to
ride away steadily together in the direction he
indicated. He would cover the rear. They
left him, still, on his horse Brigham, which
never winced as the savages came riding down
upon the solitary horseman with many a yell
and whoop.

14° “BUFFALO BILL”

The Indians have the same pity and respect
for a madman that the Irish and Bretons show
for an idiot, an innocent; they slackened pace
somewhat as they neared this statuesque man
and rider in the way. Suddenly Cody lifted
his rifle, a sixteen-shot Winchester. The
Express rifle is preferred by English hunters
in the West, but the Winchester has succeeded
the Sharpe’s in the favour of those American
backwoodsmen who have resigned the muzzle¬
loading Kentucky rifle for the latest magazine
guns.

Sixteen shots from the repeater into that
serried cavalry made them halt with sixteen
dead men or horses; and thereupon Buffalo
Bill rode after his charges, reloading on the
way. This act was repeated before the Indians
fully understood this novelty of a rifle that shot
many times like a revolver, and gave up the
costly chase. They could not be expected to
ride up against an instrument that “pumped
out ” fire and death.

CHAPTER XV.

SCOUTING.—“ CODY’S RIDE.”-THE EXASPERATING

MULE.—BUCKSKIN JOE’S LAST GALLOP.-THE

DUEL WITH YELLOW HAND.

Both Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill were scouts
to General E. A. Carr, famous as an Indian
fighter. His brother-general, Penrose, man¬
aged to send word of his being surrounded by-
Cheyenne Indians under command of a noted
chief, Black Kettle, near the Cimarron River.
This is an important branch of the Arkansas
River, and running between it and the Canadian
River. The whole region is troubled. The
Atlantic and Pacific Railroad intersects it east
and west. There are several Indian reserva¬
tions, daily invaded by unscrupulous white men ;
there are negro settlements, and an army of
squatters in Oklahoma were in equal enmity
against the red men, whose guaranteed land
they usurped, and the U.S. Government

142

BUFFALO BILL .»

officials and troops who were trying to protect
the Indians on the soil they considered theirs
under a sacred treaty. The Cheyennes ( Chiens ,
or Dogs) had left their reservation farther west
and were on the war-path. They had sur¬
rounded General Penrose, and expected to
force a surrender by famine, whereupon they
would have murdered every one. As the red
men grow less and less in number, they become
the more convinced that extermination is the
word of order against them, despite seeming
good faith. They submit, but only to main
force, and no longer believe any promises made
them.

Something like unity for the great end of
meeting the paleface with “the larger bat¬
talions,” now and then is^n idea perceived by
them. As the Northern nations were collected
by Tecumseh, so the Sioux and allies were by
Sitting Bull.

In this case, the Cheyennes had overwhelmed
General Penrose. For “generals,” on the
border, usually read “colonels,” for the U.S.
army is so small, that often a general in rank has
but a thousand men to follow his orders.

The Cheyennes were pursuing their tradi-

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

143

tional tactics. They covered the ground all
about the besieged, wearied and worried them
with sharp-shooting, drove back all couriers,
and picked off stragglers. The more to daun
them, they held mysterious councils, betrayed
by howls and yells, which the Indian experts
interpreted as rejoicing over the torment of a
captive, or the applause at some new and de¬
lightful project of the same sort to be carried
out when the troops were captured. The latter
had come to extremities : the last of the meat
was going, that of the draught oxen. After
this, the horses must follow, and dismounted
dragoons retreating are fearfully at the mercy
of mounted plain Indians. Good judges reckon
them the finest light cavalry in the world, even
when the Cossacks and Circassians of the
Russian Imperial Guard are taken into con¬
sideration.

At this juncture, when the Cheyennes would
soon have charged upon the enfeebled regiment,
the blessed succour, long given up as hopelessly
expected, arrived. The surprised Indians re¬
tired in disorder, but were overtaken at the
river. One charge routed them where the
water had made them stand, and here Wild

144

“ BUFFALO BILL”

Bill galloped into the band, overtook Black
Kettle, and stabbed him to death in the very
heart of his body-guard. On turning, he found
fifty of them around about him ; long odds,
although a man has a revolver in each hand.
But his comrade, Buffalo Bill, had seen his
strait.

He, too, charged the throng with a revolver
in each fist, and having joined his companion,
and, by his in-rush, left a gap, the redoubtable
pair rode out by it, knee to knee, “ shooting
their way ” clean through.

This was a feat of horsemanship, sure
and rapid small-arm firing and cool courage
which was fitly appreciated by the famous
“Fighting Fifth” cavalry, which were the
lookers-on.

It was with this regiment that our scout was
principally engaged. He fought in its van
against Sioux as well as against Cheyennes.
In 1868, in the autumn, he was with it at Fort
Hayes, Kansas, under command of Gen. Phil.
Sheridan, the Murat of the Federal cavalry in
the Civil War.

“ Sheridan’s Ride ” is poetised for posterity,
but Buffalo Bill’s ride, equally as meet for

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 145

rhyme, remains unwritten, although remembered
in the West.

All that year the Indians were “ bad.” The
woods and plains swarmed with them.

Nevertheless, Buffalo Bill safely executed a
ride with despatches from Gen. Sheridan to
Fort Larned, sixty-five miles. Here Gen.
Hazen was awaiting to go to Fort Sarah, thirty
miles off, and gladly availed himself of the
guidance of one so brave, trusty, and well
acquainted with the difficult and dangerous
country.

Their task safely accomplished, Cody re¬
turned all alone, or at least was half way, when
he was stopped by some forty or fifty
Kiowas, who “ prevailed” on him to accompany
them to their chief, Santanta, a noted and
white-man-hating leader, at Pawnee Rock.

To most men the noted scout would seem to
be unhappily placed ; but, fortunately, he re¬
membered General Hazen, in their long chat on
the road, remarking on the uncommonly simple
and impudent request of this chief, whilst on
the war-path, for beef to feed his braves. It
must be acknowledged that a military officer is
often placed on the horns of the dilemma of

146

BUFFALO BILL.

being censured for aiding the hostile Indians
with supplies, or for refusing them that without
which they would have to go home famishing,
or raid on the settlers’ herds and flocks.

In consequence of this hint, Buffalo Bill
represented himself as the herald of the cattle
which he stated the great white chief was
only too delighted to furnish his great red
brother (like star tragedians, all captains of
tens and captains of twenties are “great” on
the border). Cody was ready to bring him the
“ big heap (many) whoa-haws ” now that he
had “found” the chief. “Whoa-haws” is a
somewhat humorous Indian name for tame
cattle, founded on the frequency of the cry
among herdsmen.

The envoy, of course, could be no longer
held as a prisoner. On the contrary, his
weapons and his mule were restored to him.
As the American mule is often a magnificent
animal, some fifteen or even sixteen hands
high as compared with the mustangs of under
fourteen, the guides and scouts ofttimes use
them on long arduous journeys. But the
astute chieftain imposed a guard of honour
upon the harbinger.

“IN THE WILD WEST”

147

Naturally Cody only awaited a chance to
break away from these dozen redskins, and did
so, being chased up to a few miles of Fort
Larned, both firing at one another as well as
the pace permitted. At Pawnee Fork the
fugitive had to swim the stream, and the
pursuers gained at this point. On the other
hand, Cody met a soldier and a scout in the
woods, who were driving a waggon in to the
fort. The three drew up and checked the
savages with a volley, killing two, and the rest
returned to the hungry Santanta without any
“ meat,” beef or human.

This clever deception and the losses of
warriors were a double injury which the chief
determined, and was indeed bound by Indian
honour, to avenge. He sent the fiery cross
around to detached parties and allies, and came
up, six hundred strong, to besiege the garrison
even before the cheers over Cody for this
successful stratagem had died away. The
news of their investment should be reported to
the commanding general, Sheridan, without
delay, but nobody cared to risk an almost
certain and horrible death at the hands of the
exasperated savages.

148

BUFFALO BILL*

Another principal scout, although not a
coward, but having become imbued with the
aborigines’ own opinion about foolhardiness
was “ reluctant to risk himself,” to use the
words of Gen. Carr, who does not blame him.
These men will take desperate chances, and
will try to creep through a knot-hole, but here
was an almost total absence, we say, of likeli¬
hood of piercing the red men’s lines.

At this nick, Cody quietly offered himself.
Thus was he always ready to go on such
errands of life and death, in the darkest night
or the worst weather, although knowing how
much the emergency required of man. The
autumn was becoming a terrible winter of snow,
rain and sleet.

The best horse was given the volunteer, and
at the dead of night and the height of a storm,
when the ill-clad Indians might be most ex¬
pected to be under cover and relaxing vigilance,
he rode out of the beleaguered fort. Much
better sentinels than their masters, the half-wild
dogs which, in fact, often associate with wolves
and can hardly be distinguished from them in
size, colour, look, and sharpness of scent and
sight, were on the look out. Cody rode upon

IN THE WILD WEST, 1 ”

'49

one, and the whole siege force -were aroused ;
he was prettily peppered, but managed to get
through and delivered his message at daylight.
He had earned and enjoyed two hours’ sleep,
when he returned to report himself for duty.
At that moment Gen. Sheridan was offering
five hundred dollars (one hundred pounds) for
a courier to take the news and necessary orders
on to Fort Dodge, nearly a hundred miles be¬
yond. Three couriers, not to mention several
settlers, had already met their death at the
hands of the savages, who seemed to be shoot¬
ing up all over the land.

“Some one must go!” added the officer,
who had never spared himself in action, and
was surprised to find no taker of his offer.

But falling into the power of the chivalric
Gen. Lee’s soldiery and into that of the pitiless
Kiowas and Cheyennes and Sioux, are very
different fates. Anyway, Cody modestly said
that he would go unless a better man turned up
before four o’clock in the afternoon. He fully
intended to repose in the meantime, much need¬
ing so to do, as is apparent; but he had reckoned
without his hosts, for in true Western hospi¬
tality, his friends would banquet him. He may

BUFFALO BILL”

rjo

have been regaled but scarcely refreshed when
the time came for him, since nobody had offered
to pluck bright honour, to get in the saddle
again. At seventy-five miles he changed horses,
and accomplished the whole ninety-five by
reaching Fort Dodge at ten in the morning.

The Indians were still so thick and alert
about the garrison that his arrival startled as a
miracle. During the last three days a message
by the commander had been vainly awaiting a
carrier.

However, Cody wanted to get back to Gen.
Hazen’s, and undertook the almost fatal errand.

On a government mule, the best animal
available, he set out on the now familiar road
at sunset.

When sixty miles east, this “ amoosin’ cuss ”
exhibited the perversity of the hybrid by
running away when his rider had alighted to
freshen up at a spring, and started off, on the
trail to the fort, luckily. For over thirty miles,
the critter,” a monster of perversity, led the
way for the foot-passenger just out of range.
Then, in an unlucky moment, it allowed the
infuriated horseman to vent the accumulated
bile, and still his playfulness for ever with a

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 151

bullet. The courier made his appearance at
the fort with the harness on his back.

Gen. Hazen was fretting at the lack of a
messenger to Gen. Sheridan, and when Cody-
had some rest, he actually accepted this con¬
tinuance of his task, however truly this seemed
contravening our ancient saw, “Never ride a
willing horse to death.”

Nevertheless, Buffalo Bill went forward and
achieved the most extensive despatch-bearing
feat ever known; in fifty-eight hours in the
saddle, he had gone three hundred and fifty-
five miles, an average of six miles an hour,
without referring to the mule-pi lotted stroll of
thirty-five miles! Gen. Sheridan was all the
more astounded, as, having acquired fame as
an equestrian, he better valued the ride than
other officers.

It was Sheridan who appointed W. F. Cody
chief of the government scouts, a high post
which ranked him among the general officers.

Still attached to the Fifth Cavalry, although
in this exalted capacity, he accompanied them
from Colorado to Fort McPherson, Nebraska.
On the march there was a severe action with
the Indians at Bearer Creek.

152

“BUFFALO BILL:

His horse was well-known in the West as
“ Buckskin Joe.” The adjective is often
applied to men as well as horses, but for a
different reason ; the “ buckskin ” horse is one
of an Isabella or dirty yellow hue, like the
orange horse on which the Chevalier d’Artag-
nan began his adventures in “ The Three
Musketeers.” The “ Buckskin Sam ” of Indian
stories is merely a hunter clad in deerskin
clothes.

“Buckskin Joe” was a very intelligent and
highly-trained horse. In dangerous expedi¬
tions he would be reserved by his master riding
another and leading him. He could even be
left to follow like a dog. He could and would
thrust his head into his bridle to facilitate being
bridled and bitted, on an emergency. Add
that he was fleet, staunch and fearless, and you
have a steed worthy of a page of praise.

In his duty of post-guide at Fort McPher¬
son, Bill had a despatch to Gen. Carr, when a
troop of Indians, a hundred in number, dashed
out upon him and began a chase of all but two
hundred miles. Old Joe had never been so
“extended,” albeit he had saved his master’s
head by his heels more than once before. By

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 153

degrees he “ dropped ” his pursuers until only
a dozen were at his tracks in the last fifty miles,
and all were pumped out when the stars and
stripes on the fort flagpole met the relieved
rider’s eyes. The poor horse went blind from
the strain, and was placed for the well-deserved
repose on the Cody farm on the North Platte
River. Here he died of old age in 1882.

The army reports mention Chief of Scouts
Cody’s name for valour in an expedition in
1869, on the Republican River. He was the
leader in the pursuit of Tall Bull, a Cheyenne
chief of note, with his Dog Soldiers, or select
desperadoes and bandits, who were brought to
bay and whipped in Colorado, at Summit
Springs ; it was his guiding the Fifth Cavalry
into a position whence their charge was deci¬
sive, which gave the blue-coats the victory.
There was still another pursuit along the
Niobrara River, for after the Indians in a body
are once broken, their detachments must be
kept on the run, or they will, in pursuance of
orthodox savage tactics, split up still more, but
all the little bands proceeding to rally at a pre¬
arranged spot. On the 26th of September, this
same year, he was surrounded by his old foe-

154 “BUFFALO BILL*

men the Sioux at Prairie Dog Creek, and nar¬
rowly escaped being offered up in propitiation
of the unavenged manes of their brethren,
“gone over the range.” The Indians of the
plains poetically place their heaven on an
imaginary and illimitable tableland extending
westward from the crest of the Rocky Moun¬
tains. When the rising sun gilds that, ridge,
they deserve, with their snowy crowns and icy
diamonds, the native name of “ Shining Moun¬
tains.”

■He followed the flag of this same cavalry
regiment into Arizona, where he participated
gloriously in several fights. Besides General
Carr, he was associated with Generals Crook
and Terry, both likewise having the reputation
of men who fight the Indians on horses, and/
not in ambulance waggons—a scout’s dis¬
tinction between the go-ahead combatants and
the old school of military men who tried to
fight the redskins with military academy tactics.

When Gen. Sheridan had the important
charge of the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia on
his hands, and that prince was being shown
the .wild western scenes and fauna, he could
choose no more reliable “ guide and initiator ”

IN THE WILD WEST.’

155

into the way to kill buffalo scientifically than
Chief Scout Cody. This was at the end of
1871. The buffalo hunt was stage-managed,
to use the expression, by Mr. Cody, and went
off to the Muscovite’s satisfaction. There is
always a theatrical element in the hunts given
a royal or imperial sportsman.

Cody it is, who, above all other guides, has
been chosen by Old World sightseers and
hunters, in the region where a host of savages,
as blind to crowns and garters as the Zulus, may
at any moment descend on a pleasure-party and
make a battue of dukes and barons. He piloted
in the canyons and over the prairie many noble
shikarrees, who have highly praised him in their
travel-books, as far as they have been authors.
We may name Sir George Gore, the Irish sports¬
man who hunted the West like an independent
trapper, living in a hunting-box, and was met
in perilous places by surprised wanderers, who
little suspected in their republican simplicity
that one of the “ Britishers’ peerage ” was before
them ; another “ Earl and the Doctor ’’—Lord
Dunraven and Dr. Kingsley, the former’s testi¬
mony being that Cody showed eyesight that
could be depended upon like a good field-glass

■56

“BUFFALO BILL:

(General Carr went further and said “his eyesight
is better than a good field-glass,”) “ he is a
wonderful judge of distance, always ready to
tell how far it was to water; ” and General Custer,
and other Americans of position whose life
lost by an error or even an unforeseeable
mishap, would have ruined a career.

Custer, with his winning and romantic manner,
had exercised his usual spell over Cody, and the
latter was deeply affected, like all the General's
brothers-in-arms, when the news came of his
having been defeated and massacred—the entire
command—by Sitting Bull, a Sioux chief who
had massed the best warriors of his own and
allied tribes, on the Little Big Horn River,
1876.

The war had been in hot progress previous
to this event, and Buffalo Bill, after a peaceful
retirement, had joined his old comrades of the
Fifth Cavalry, who dashed into the conflict with
this addition as an augury of ultimate success. ’

There was a grand concentration of all avail¬
able troops towards the recent battlefields, for
General Reno had been surrounded at the same
time as General Custer, and an Indian victory
on a large scale over an army corps is of im-

“IN THE WILD WEST” 157

measurable loss of the military’s effect on red
men of all kinds. The news is always spread
by Indian runners from the victors, who take
care to add to it a florid promise of greater spoil
in case their ranks are increased by the receivers.
They mention all the tribes of which repre¬
sentatives fell, in order to appeal to the blood-
feud.

The Fifth were scouting at haphazard along
the South Cheyenne River and to the Black
Hills, driving straggling Indians before them
who had not had time to join the great union,
when the news of Custer’s defeat was brought
them.

General Merritt was in command ,vice General
Carr. He at once ordered a march into the Big
Horn country, incredible as the news was that a
general so experienced as Custer should have
let himself be “ wiped out.” There are those
who believe that the dashing officer was more
reckless than usual from his private resentment
at having been shelved till lately by the head
officials of the War Department

Be that as it may, General Merritt had
barely started when he heard that five hundred
or more Cheyennes, being inflamed by Sitting

IS«

BUFFALO BILLA

Bull’s victory, had renounced the path of peace
and were on the way to join him. It was im¬
peratively necessary that all attempts should be
made to prevent this reinforcement reaching
him, and, besides, their punishment would check
similar ebullitions among the redskins who were
still quiet to all appearance about the agencies.

Picked men to the number of five hundred
were instantly started off so as to converge
towards the calculated route of these blood¬
thirsty braves, and Cody was their scout.

On the 17th of July (1876), Buffalo Bill was
on the scout for this troop, a couple of miles
ahead. Instead of his Winchester rifle, he had
an Evans, with thirty-four shots, a magnificent
and almost unique instrument of death. This,
to so perfect a marksman, made him no mean
enemy, although alone. He discovered the
mass of Indians, more in number than the
Indian agent had reported them when they
began their march. But, at the same time,
he descried two white men on horseback whom
he divined to be despatch-bearers, very likely
for his own general. They were on the right
course fairly, but were unaware that the
Cheyennes were coming in between them and

“IN THE WILD WEST:’

159

the regular horse. As soon as the Cheyennes
perceived the two, whilst Buffalo Bill remained
unperceived, a squad of thirty reds were sent
out to capture them.

On the instant Cody conceived and put into
execution a plan as bold as ever amazed the
savages.

He rode over the rising ground concealing
him heretofore from the enemy, and directly
towards the detachment aiming to take the
two despatch-bearers. The thirty drew rein
at once, expecting the scout must be the head
of a company to be so venturesome, but as a
glance convinced them he was alone, they
whooped and started again to envelop him
in the cordon.

But, on coming within range, he opened fire
on them with the almost inexhaustible magazine-
rifle. The fire was returned, notwithstanding
the amazement of the redskins ; but this was
all for the better, as, for one party, the two
messengers were warned that danger was in
that direction, and, for another, the regular
troops also heard it, and as in these skirmishes
soldiers always move to the firing, they would
be hastily coming up.

“BUFFALO BILL."

160

Meanwhile, having checked the squad by the
loss of two or three men and more ponies, Bill
wheeled off to the top of a hill, signalled the
scouts that he was a friend and they were to
follow him if they would save their hair, and
rode for the column at full speed.

The Cheyennes, puzzled how they had been
forestalled, halted and formed their line of
battle, for their conduct in leaving an agency
and their reservation under all arms was in¬
excusable, and they resolved to fight, on the
principle of being hanged as well for a lamb as
a sheep.

The usual reconnoitring began on both sides,
for, in these fights, both parties keep under
cover as much as possible, although the regular
cavalry try to manoeuvre for charges in column
as they are trained to make. The Cheyennes
became emboldened by the discovery that “ the
police of the plains ” were but half their original
force, augmented since their departure.

The van of each side were in view of one
another when Cody volunteered to go out and
get the latest information of the disposal of the
enemy.

Against him two chiefs advanced, one named

“IN THE WILD WEST." 161

Yellow Hand, and the other Red Knife, son of
one Cut Nose, a famous chief. These were not
despicable antagonists although young.

Yellow Hand had the start of his comrade,
and recognized the white when within a hundred
yards of him. Taciturn as an Indian is, he is
loquacious enough when going into action, and
freely taunts an opponent and indulges in
gestures, such as the Shakesperian biting a fig
or thumb, wherever the American native learnt
that trick.

“Halloa! Pa-e-has-ka! ” he shouted. “You
see I know you! the very man I want to fight
and show the scalp of! ”

The borderman does not indulge in the
powers of rhetoric with which the son of the
forest is credited, but replies with language
more forcibly arabesque.

Bill had orders from his general not to expose
fiis valuable life, but it was not in the nature of
a white man to be challenged and evade the
contest. Under the eyes of the soldiers and of
the red men, he charged Yellow Hand, who
galloped to meet him the sooner.

At their exchange of shots, the savage’s rifle
and the other’s revolver killed each the oppo-

162 “BUFFALO BILL.”

nent's horse. This would have equalised
matters, but the chief was caught by one leg
under the pony, and Cody had fallen clear.
As he ran up to the other to pistol him dead,
the red man got free and they fired at the same
time, both with revolvers. Of late years, the
chiefs spare no expense to obtain the most
modern arms of precision.

Both were slightly wounded.

The next moment the two closed in a hand-
to-hand knife fight. As usual, between men
accustomed to wielding steel, the play was
short; the bowie overcame “the scalper.”
Yellow Hand was struck down by a stab in the
breast, and, knowing the effect on both sides of
what would be taken as an omen, Buffalo Bill
excitedly tore off the chief’s war-headdress of
feathers, and brandished it over his head and
the dying wretch under his boot.

“ Hurrah! the first scalp in revenge of
Custer! ” was his cry.

The cheer of the soldiers was followed by a
warning cry from the same quarter. During
this encounter, though brief, the second Indian
had come up and hoped to ride down our hero
before he could recover from that death-

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 163

grapple. Bill looked up in • time, and with
another revolver-shot flung Red Knife off the
horse, dead at his feet.

With their most frenzied yells at this double
loss, the Cheyennes rushed at the lone hunter
who had braved them so insolently. It was
plainly a race between the two bodies of
cavalry: if they came into collision on the
wrong side of the scout, he would have been
crushed under the war-ponies. Happily the
shock was before him, the regulars having
charged rapidly.

After the meeting, the Cheyennes receded,
and their flight became a rout, so that the rem¬
nant slunk back to the Agency, “whipped so
that it would take four of them to casta shadow.”
This action was called the Battle of War Bonnet
or Indian Creek, in Wyoming. The cavalry
went on to Goose Creek, Montana.

Cody continued his services in the expedi¬
tions about the Big Horn and the chase of the
defeated Sioux through the weird and rugged
Yellowstone Valley. Sitting Bull was driven
into Canada.

General Carr wrote his opinion that Cody’s
services to the army and the country by trail-

164

“BUFFALO BILU

ing, finding, and fighting Indians, and thus
protecting the frontier settlers, have been far
beyond the compensation he has received-
“ His trailing, when following Indians, is simply
wonderful. He is a most extraordinary
hunter.”

CHAPTER XVI.

BUFFALO BILL ON THE STAGE.-“ NED BUNTLINE.”

—THE HERO IN PROPRIA PERSONA.-“TEXAS

JACK” AS A PLAYER.—“THE WILD WEST
SHOW ” PROJECTED AND REALISED.

The evolution of the redskin and paleface
drama will be an interesting one to trace out in
detail by some dramatic Darwin. The broad
features can, in the meanwhile, be briefly and
rapidly pointed out.

The red man who had hospitably received
the Quakers in Pennsylvania, clubbed the white
man in the person of Captain John Smith in
Virginia, and fought against “ the Bostons,” in
favour of King George, during the Revolution
of 1776—96, disappeared from the Atlantic and
Mid-United States, leaving only a few degene¬
rate scions to peddle baskets and beaded-
slippers—which latter probably inflicted more
agony on the paleface conqueror than his fore-

j66

BUFFALO BILL .”

fathers underwent at their forefathers’ stake.
The stage seized on the race gone into the
realm of legends, and not only were the
Leatherstocking Tales of Cooper, but those of
the same stamp by Dr. Bird, Snelling, Curtis,
Ingraham, and others long forgotten, dramatised,
to give lustre in a new field to tragedians whp
had worn out the patience of audiences in the
classic and Shakespearian roles.

“ Metamora,” the Jibbenainosay’s enemies,
Gilmore Simm’s ultra-refined Catawbas and
other noble savages trod the boards where
“the Huron ” of the French Theatre had alone
figured as a genuine American (!) character.

Edwin Forrest, the opponent of the native
American stage to Macready, gave much time
to perfecting his Metamora, but it was a con¬
glomeration of varied types. It was often
related by him with gusto that, one evening,
when a party of distinguished chiefs were at his
theatre, his entrance with the warwhoop, which
signified “In distress — rally around me!”
roused them into leaping from the box upon
the stage and preparing to fight in his defence
against the on-coming white soldier-super¬
numeraries. As a rule, however, the Spanish-

il IN THE WILD WEST.”

167

browned actor-Indian under the ostrich-feather
which had last waved on the head of “the
Mourning Bride,” deceived not even the
rawest boy in the gallery, despite a marvellous
broken-English.

Later, an Indian of few words, but very
much knife and tomahawk play, appeared in
minor-theatre pieces, such as “ Across the
Continent” and “Around the World in Eighty
Days.”

The humourist inflicted his blows, and
suggested that the Government kept a family
of Indians in order at intervals to parade
members through the Eastern States, now
Pawnees, now Comanches, and then Apaches
or Nez-perc6s, as the whim seized the Indian
Department, just before claiming a large money
appropriation. The newspapers averred that
the youngest chief had been recognized, in spite
of paint, as a chief who had visited New York
in 1815! he had been palmed off upon the
tax-payer under so many tribal appellatives
that he had forgotten his origin.

The old and the new style of Indian were
doomed.

An indefatigable wit stepped into the breach,

i68

BUFFALO BILL .”

and filled it up with some creatures more
alive.

This was Edward Z. C. Judson. After some
maritime experience, he had entered the literary-
arena as an American rival to Marryat, Neale,
and Barker, and, subsequently taking a liking
to amateur wood-ranging, turned his pen to the
concoction of flaring novels of fantastic Indians
and impossible white hunters. Having gone
West, and made the acquaintance of the guides
and scouts of eminence, he had written romances
with them as heroes, their names being familiar
through press articles throughout the Eastern
and Middle States, where ignorance did not
suggest the corrective of a grain of salt.

One of these stories had been dramatized as
“ Buffalo Bill the King of Bordermen,” and was
being played at a New York theatre, where
Mr. Cody saw it, on a visit early in 1872 ; the
actor had followed J udson’s hints, and “ made-
up ” so much like the scout, that the audience
recognized the original in the box, and cheered
him until he rose and made a speech, as is
expected from every remarkable citizen in the
States.

His reception in the private box only was so

“IN THE WILD WEST? 16®

hearty that some theatrical managers offered
him one thousand dollars a-week merely to
walk on. His reply was the characteristic one
that he would “ rather face a thousand Indians
than attempt to open his mouth” before as
many people in a playhouse. But Judson was
not to be shaken off by any such replies, and
he continued to urge Cody to go on the stage.
At length the persistency bore its desired fruit
Cody and Texas Jack were engaged and pro¬
ceeded to Chicago, whither Judson came with a
company to support the “ stars ” of an entirely
new theatrical constellation. The opening
night was to be the 16th December, 1872, and
the scouts arrived a few days before. Short as
the notice was, and with the two principals
entirely novices, Judson, with that self-con¬
fidence and improvidence supposed to be in¬
veterate in the literary man, surprised the
manager and his new actors by answering :—

“ I have not written the piece out yet, but it
is all here !” tapping his forehead. “ I shall set
about it at once.”

The manager was enraged.

No play! and this was Thursday, with it
“ billed ” for Monday. He cancelled the date,

i7o “BUFFALO BILL.”

and things looked at an end. But Judson was
only the more audacious at .this set-back. He
engaged the theatre on his own account fqr one
week at one thousand dollars, and sat down in
a hotel with copyists and wrote a farrago in
about four hours, which he entitled “ Scouts of
the Plains.”

Cody and John B. Omohundro (“Texas
Jack”) were given their parts, and their faces
at this moment would have been capital studies
for a comedy actor.

“ Just get them by heart overnight,” said
Judson, easily, “and be perfect by rehearsal in
the morning.”

The dumbfounded Indian-fighters stared at
the writings and then at one another. At last
Jack of Texas said to Bill of the Buffaloes :—

“ Bill, how long will it take you to commit
your part to memory ? ”

With the same seriousness came the answer :

“ Jack, about seven years, if I have good
luck! ”

Judson understood nothing of this in his old
literary experience and new theatrical one.
He only told them to be good boys and go to
work.

“IN THE WILD WEST?

[71

Cody studied hard, and, indeed, not only
knew his part but the cues, which he recited
with the rest to Judson. All the “cues” the
hunter-actor knew of previously were those
used at billiards.

Ready or not ready, the opening night came.
The theatre was full with three thousand
auditors, including Gen. Sheridan and his staff.

The piece was just such claptrap and rubbish
as its impromptu manufacture would lead one
to anticipate. To give his novices support
Ned Buntline Judson had cast himself in the
part of an old trapper named Cale Durg.

When Cody made his first appearance, the
simple sight of his old general and the many
army officers who knew him so well, gave him
an attack of stage-fright, and the hard-studied
lines went whistling down the wind.

Luckily Buntline was ready. He put the
natural question, “ What detained you ? ” in a
natural manner, for the debutant was a little
late, and the latter answered as naturally with
the latest event in his mind, “ I have been on
a hunt with Milligan.”

The newspapers were full of this hunt with
Milligan, or rather this hunt of Milligan, for he

BUFFALO BILL”

was a prominent citizen of this same city of
Chicago, who, being out for a pleasure excur¬
sion under the charge of Buffalo Bill, had been
chased by the Indians over the plains. En¬
couraged by Judson, Cody related the affair,
and did so in an amusing style, which took
immensely with the audience. Over a pipe,
fighting again in words his actions of note,
there are few more genial story-tellers than our
hero.

Whilst the yarn was being spun Judson
passed word at the wing to have the “ real live
Indians” got ready, for he feared that Texas
Jack was not as likely to save the piece as
Buffalo Bill promised to do. Jack was wanting
to take it all as actuality, and, before long—to
anticipate a little—protested against the unfair
treatment of the heavy villain, who, he deplored,
was “ sauced ” by a servant-maid in one act,
abused by the heroine in another, pulled about
by Bill in the third, and in the fourth mauled
by him ; it would be more according to his
ideas of the fitness of things, if he were given
a gun or pistol, or, at least, a knife, and allowed
to make some resistance to the scouts.

Presently, Judson, as Cale Durg, roared out

IN THE WILD WEST”

173

the cue for a kind of pantomimic “ spill and
pelt.” It was: “The Injuns are upon us!”
and in tumbled the irrepressible red men.
These were the quarry hungered for by the
scouts, who “ went for them red-hot,” says Mr.
Cody, “ until there was not breath enough in
the biggest body of the foe to stir a rose-leaf on
a drop of dew.” The audience went wild with
applause over a scene of “ sensational realism ”
(we quote bills of the day,) never surpassed on
any stage of the two Continents. No one,
■except themselves, seemed to regret the non-
appearance of the other acts.

In the wait, Judson w.ent about crowing :

My piece is going splendidly. Go ahead
with the second act.”

Thus went on the piece, or, rather, the two
scouts, who blazed away with rifles and re¬
volvers, and knocked the Indians about till
the latter seemed to be figures in a Zoetrope.
Neither Jack nor Bill spoke a line of the
written piece. Nevertheless the press in the
morning declared it the best show, of its kind,
•eyer given in Chicago—“it was so bad that
it was good,” one journal specified its reason¬
ing—but it could not see what Judson was

174 “BUFFALO BILL”

doing all the time if it took him four hours
to write that drama!

“ The Scouts of the Plains ” was a constant
success, and the stars might have made for¬
tunes out of it. At all events, Cody’s share
was ten thousand dollars. Once accustomed
to the theatre, his business talent would not
let him neglect the pecuniary chances it
offered. In June, 1873, he returned to it, but,
this time, as his own manager. Instead of
Texas Jack, he had Wild Bill with him, but
the wild one was, as the manager pathetically
deplores, “ not an easy man to handle,” and
would indulge in practical jokes of the sort
popular in frontier bar-rooms—shooting at the
supers in the legs to see them jump, etc.

Wild Bill was killed at Deadwood, in August,
1876. His slayer was, according to one account,
a gambler hired by other gamblers to put him
out of their way; and, according to another,
some one who cherished an old feud. The
second nature of always having a weapon ready
was exemplified in his drawing his revolver,
even although he had received an instantly
mortal wound.

When Texas Jack died, the news was tele-

“ZA THE WILD WESTT 175

graphed across the Atlantic, so much of a
celebrity did he seem to the news-agents of the
press. He was one of the best of the guides,
and Earl Dunraven has spoken highly of him
in his American travel-books.

In October, 1876, Cody returned again to the
stage, and, in that and the 1879 season, cleared
nearly forty thousand dollars.

With his old pardners dying, the buffalo dis¬
appearing, the plains portioned out in farms,
and the mountain pines intermingled with the
cranes and chimneys of gold-mining machinery,
Cody’s occupation seemed gone, and, in his
lounging-room at his farm, with his neighbour
Nate Salsbury urging him to continue striking
the hot iron, the project of “ The Wild West
Show ” was shaped out.

These realistic pictures of western life de¬
lighted the eastern people, and before the
departure for England, had been seen by over
two millions!

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DEADWOOD COACH.-A NOTABLE ATTACK.-

“CALAMITY SAL’S* RESCUE.-THE ABAN¬

DONED WAIF IN CLOVER.

There are several vehicular motions which
have to be experienced to be perfectly realized.
Among them are tobogganing or hand-sledging'
of any kind, whether on the natural slide of a
snow-covered hill—with a drop of ten to twenty
feet, as where a road cuts it at right angles—or
on the made-up surface of a montagne Russe;
canoeing down rapids; the “ Sea on Land
of the fairs; and, perhaps above all for con¬
tinual apprehension, dislocations, and a horrible
death at hand, the ride in a western stage-coach
over a road on the side of the Rocky Mountains.

To accomplish the miracle of a conveyance,
which, although resting on the rough ground by
its wheels, shall yet be sufficiently detached and
ethereal not to be shaken to pieces in the first

'IN THE WILD WEST!

177

half-hour, the body is suspended on leather
braces. It is an elegant improvement on the
coaches of the era of the Stuarts, when the
roads in England were awaiting the beneficent
hand of Mac Adam.

Still, honestly wrought iron, and seasoned
hickory, and leather, tanned in no modern
chemical baths but in genuine oak bark, make
a vehicle solid yet light. Such have executed
the roll down a gulch two hundred feet deep
and not been shattered.

Several of the coaches on the most frequented
routes across the North American continent
have had romantic and adventure-crammed
careers, but they have mouldered away with
no more heed than the local newspaper conde¬
scended to give to some more than commonly
startling accident befalling them.

Deadwood City, however, had one coach
which has been singled out for endurable
fame—the coach itself has, indeed, outlasted
one of the most ephemeral of the mushroom
cities of the Mid-west. The “ city ” was burnt
to ashes, and the new and respectable town,
built on the calcined graves of gold-miners
and gold-robbers, of sisters of charity and

i 7 8

BUFFALO BILL .”

beauteous barmaids, of monsters of wickedness
and praiseworthy pioneers, shudders at the
mention of the notorious scamps of whom the
old town was proud. What rogues they were,
and under what singular nicknames they
flourished! “Ten-die” Brown, “Red” Clark,
Wild Bill, Doc. Baggs and his pardner Bull,
etc. Each of these “rough and toughs” had
counterparts in the best types of bordermen.
This was a cattle-rancher, who, in early life
as a cowboy, amazed a rich farmer by gallop¬
ing fifty miles in the night to restore a car¬
pet-bag with bank-notes, and by refusing so
much as a drink for the service; this other, a
man who had never touched a card but learnt
the game over-night and sat out a seven hours’
play with the chief gamblers, under the fire of
their associates, and “ dead broke ” them, so
that they quitted the camp laughed at by their
own “pals” ; and “The Best Shot,” the scout
Charley Reynolds. If the villainous gang
could have secured him as a bully they would
have “ cleared out ” the place, but he was above
their temptations. What an appropriate death
for a champion marksman was his! When
General Custer was surrounded by the Sioux,

“IN THE WILD WEST!

179

Reynolds calmly viewed the scene, and said, as
calmly “ We are all ‘ gone up.’ There is no
hope for us.” Then he began fighting, but
being shot off his horse, he was compelled to
make a breastwork of it, having caught its rein
as he fell and killed it. In vain for a long
time did the Indians try to approach him :
after his breech-loading carbine he had two
revolvers to empty, and, so good was his
aim, despite his many wounds, that almost all
shots were fatal. Finally he fell “shot to
pieces,” and the enraged savages cut off his
head.

With such citizens in Dead wood, it may be
conjectured that its stage-coaches left with
passengers who knew how to defend their
property, and with drivers- who were hard men
to stop; nevertheless, the road-robbers often
attempted to do so, and as often obtained the
gold-dust as bullets. Sad to say, there were
employes of the stage-coach company who gave
information of the more valuable freight.
They had even established a system of signal¬
ling by which the highwaymen, without ventur¬
ing up to the way-stations, learnt which coach
to ambush and where best to do so*

180 “BUFFALO BILL .»

Sometimes a single desperado would stop a
coach full of men who, if not taken by surprise,
would have severally laughed at the fellow. At
others, a numerous party would surround the
coach and have their pleasure unconcerned,
delaying even to pick out negotiable bills and
drafts among the commercial papers.

Now and then the even tenourof their opera¬
tions would be marred by the passengers being
detectives, much as we have narrated when
Buffalo Bill’s pretended young ladies secured
the bandits; and, again, returning gold-miners
would fight desperately, the coach would
become a fort, from which and into which the
bullets crashed.

As the sides and back were leather on a
wooden framework, an unappreciated genius
patented an ironclad coach ; but, astonishing as
would have been one thus shot-proof to Indians
and white marauders, a model was never tried.

In one of the most memorable stage-coach
fights, nine robbers fell on the coach. They
knew it would be carrying a chest of gold, and
had pickets on the road to inform of its arrival
at their ambuscades.

The driver was believed to be in league with

“IN THE WILD WEST.’' 181

the highwaymen as he drew rein when
challenged, although the company’s conductor
bade him drive on. This faithful servant,
seeing half-a-dozen men appear to reinforce
the one who had first stepped out of the road¬
side bushes to cry out “ Stand ! ” had appealed
to the passengers to defend themselves. All
agreed, but two saved themselves without
offering resistance : one dropped down on the
floor of the vehicle and remained there through¬
out ; the other left it by the door opposite the
bandits and skulked in the brushwood.

The conductor fired, and the robbers poured
in a volley, which killed four passengers—one
of them, such was the peculiar freak of Nemesis,
a Californian ruffian who had murdered his
mining mate and was fleeing east to revel on
the stolen gold. The conductor was shot in
over twenty places, the villains using large or
navy revolvers and double-barrelled shot-guns.
This period was known in the West as “ the
shot-gun and revolver ” era, by the way.

The other passengers were killed, leaving
only three : the conductor, so riddled as to be
believed lifeless, and the passenger in the coach
bottom and his companion in the copse.

BUFFALO BILL‘‘

1S2

The murderers took the spoils and de¬
camped.

When the next coach came the conductor was
found just alive, and was taken to a station,
nobody hoping he would recover. He had to
have a leg twice amputated; the company
took him back into service, and he remained
there a long while, going about on an artificial
leg.

On his evidence four of the highwaymen
were caught and hanged ; the same fate awaited
the driver, implicated with them, as he con¬
fessed.

On such dangerous journeys it may readily be
imagined that lady passengers were rarities.
There were very few women in the West at
all up to i860, who were not upon farms with
their husbands and fathers. Still, some fe¬
males, attaches of the gambling saloons, music
halls, variety shows, and dance houses, flitted
from one to another mining camp, as these grew
poor and worked out, and a great find of gold
caused a “ rush ” upon another. Mostly women
enervated by dissipation, they had not the
stamina of the honest women who rode horses,
and they patronised the coaches.

“IN THE WILD WEST:’ 183

On one occasion, a representative of the
class of reprobates who are Bret Harte
heroines, named “ Calamity Sal,” was on a
coach attacked by banditti. The driver re¬
fused to halt and was promptly “ filled ” with
swanshot It was a terrible moment, and the
passengers might warrantably believe themselves
in a parlous strait. But before the horses could
be secured, this woman seized the reins from
the dying driver’s grasp, and drove off through
the hail of bullets. Needless to say a purse
was made up for her; but however capable of
noble acts by fits and starts, these outcasts
almost never reformed. The coach was riddled
by the farewell shots, and was soon after con¬
demned and left on the road-side as a useless
article.

It was here that Bill Cody noticed it one
day, and remembering that he had come home
in it when he was overjoyed with the results of
a successful scouting expedition with General
Crook, he took pity on it and bought it in
order it should repose in peace. But its addi¬
tion to his “ Wild West Show ” was happily
suggested, and the old vehicular celebrity of the
overland route figures in the arena, the butt of a

184 “BUFFALO BILL .»

simulated Indian attack and rescue by Buffalo
Bill.

The stage-coach has, of course, succumbed to
the “ iron-horse,” save on side roads leading to
railway stations; and if ridicule kills, the very
latest adventure of stage-coach robbers is
sufficiently ludicrous to be the end of their
exploits.

A captain of these highway gangs, repining
over the gloomy lookout, was struck by the
idea of plundering the stage company with a
combination of finesse and the usual roughness.

He went to a town on the frontier, opened a
place of business, and after becoming “one of
our prominent mercantile princes,” stepped into
the coach offices to book a money parcel of the
value of thirty thousand dollars, which he duly
insured to that amount.

He then telegraphed in cipher to two of his
band, who waylaid the coach at an appointed
place and cleaned it out after the orthodox
mode. On receiving reply-message that the
order was fulfilled, the captain, still as a
business man, claimed the insurance money,
and was promptly informed that the company
refused payment. He was still more amazed

IN THE WILD WEST

.85

when a writ was served on him to answer for
an attempt to extort money, and for conspiracy
to rob the coach.

Arrested on these charges, he found his two
accomplices already in prison, whither he was
conveyed. All had been true, and the pair
vowed that the affair had gone off smoothly,
there having been only two passengers in the
coach, who had offered no resistance.

The chapter of surprises was not yet com¬
plete.

On the trial-day, the company’s booking
agent began by stating how, in suspicion of the
customer, he had examined the pretended parcel
of bank-notes before witnesses and a notary
public, and it was duly recorded that it con¬
tained waste paper. He had similarly put up
a roll of notes, and sent this new package on by
the coach, which was stopped and robbed; a
detective was one of the passengers, and he,
having taken particular notice of the highway¬
men, had speedily had them arrested, with the
parcel in their possession.

The robbers were wondering where the
second passenger was with evidence to corro¬
borate the detective’s, when the lawyer for the

“BUFFALO BILL .’ 1

prosecution pronounced his name: it was that
of the judge presiding over their very trial.

The rogues were given long terms of im¬
prisonment, and the captain was led away,
deploring that he had been so clever as to
depart from the traditional art of Richard
T urpin.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A CURIOUS AND NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT.—“THE
WILD WEST COMBINATION” SHOW IN THE
EASTERN STATES.—ITS CHARACTERS AND
FEATURES.—ITS RECEPTION IN ENGLAND.

After having cogitated the idea of an ex¬
hibition which should present certain charac¬
teristic features of the still wild Western States
to the people of the manufacturing and business
towns of their Eastern sisters, Messrs. Cody
and Salsbury, neighbours on the North Platte
River, came to a conclusion.

The project was feasible and realisable, if
not difficult, by these two. Mr. Salsbury was an
experienced theatrical entrepreneur, who had
even sent a company, of operetta singers to
London, where they appeared at the Gaiety
Theatre. Mr. Cody, almost, alone of men, had
the intimate acquaintance, the friendship and
the hold, or grip, upon such men as would be

“BUFFALO BILL.”

required, to make his side of the enterprise
successful, if the public relished the novelty.

Thereupon, the collection of the strange
company and quadrupedal supernumeraries was
begun. .

There were to be shown the almost vanished
buffalo, the rapidly disappearing bighorn or
mountain sheep, antelope, bears, tiger-cats,
pumas, and so forth—the fauna of Western
and South-western North America—so badly
represented in the zoological gardens of the
Old and New World.

Europe has hardly seen a solitary specimen
of the buffalo, and certainly none in a condition
which gives an adequate idea of its wild state.
Some thirty years since the ingenious “ Prince
of Showmen,” P. T. Barnum, projected a simu¬
lated buffalo hunt at New York, but the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
speedily blunted their horns and the affair
became as tame as the Spanish bull-fights
attempted so ludicrously in London.

As for Indians, who were to be very
conspicuous in the show, only a group now and
then has been taken through England and on
the continent. The trouble with savages in

“IN THE WILD WEST.” 189

civilisation, their chafing at control, their in¬
ability to recognise written contracts in a land
where Hercules bows to a police court summons
—these obstacles have prevented our becoming
familiar with the Hiawathas and Wish-ton-
Wishes fresh from the wild woods. Neverthe¬
less, the inferior red men and the squaws obey
their chiefs perfectly, and when the chiefs trust
in and submit to a white man like Cody they
are as amenable as schoolboys.

To the animals and the savages were added
horsemen and rifle and pistol-shots.

Where horses are to be caught in a string by
the capable hand, they are so cheap that every¬
body rides; hence the “ cowboy ” and his
southern brother the Mexican vaquero were
compulsory for the cast. As for marksmen, the
absence of restriction upon firearms and the
value of them on the frontier against fur
and feather and the featherless “ biped ” him¬
self, have led to every American lad knowing
how to handle a pistol by the right end at all
events. On his Guy Fawkes’ Day, or the
Fourth of July, every budding patriot is bound
to blaze away his weight in gunpowder as an
undying protest against King George the Third

BUFFALO BILL."

190

(poor “ Farmer George ” a bogey—what a
ludicrous antithesis!). More to the point, it
was found, at the outbreak of the great Civil
War, that few of the recruits had to be taught
shootiqg, it was already an art almost un¬
wittingly acquired. What was even better for
a public exhibition, the ability to shoot at a
mark triumphantly was lodged in the fair sex
as well, and Managers Cody and Salsbury had
no great ado to engage lady champion rifle¬
shots.

With all these “ live attractions,” the project
was soon in form, and the essay was delighted
in, although crude enough.

After the principal cities had been visited,
suggestions rained in, and many were carried
out. Among others, scenery painted on the
flat, and arranged in set pieces to make pieces
of foreground blending with the main picture,
after the manner of that in the modern circular
panorama.

The programme became something better
than a mere enumeration of the dramatis persona.
Besides scenes of emigrant trains in the desert,
camping down, the camp asleep, and the like,
there were others more dramatic. The Indians

“IN THE WILD WEST.”

.191

were seen creeping up to surprise a settler and
family in his log hot; they overwhelm it, in
spite of his resistance; the whites are captured—
there is an awful pause. Then Buffalo Bill
and a troop of irregular horsemen dash in and
sweep the red men from the stake to which they
had attached their prisoner—all with as much
red fire and gunshots as our fathers relished in
the Astleyan “ Battle of Waterloo,” or the
“ Taking of Seringapatam.”

Although the Eastern States’ audiences were
glutted with circuses, the Wild West Show was
accepted with infinite relish. Every English
tourist who saw it, vaunted its novelty, - fresh
colour, picturesqueness, and manliness—the
very thing to stir the jaded eyes of our audi¬
ences, wearied of spectacular effects only too
tinselly and too bespangled. And when Mr.
Henry Irving, fresh although he was from the
glories of the Night on the Brocken, pro¬
nounced it above even his praise, the managers
could no longer resist the call to England.

Is more needed when H.M. the Queen and
the Prince and Princess of Wales have been to
see it ?—they have admired the lady-rifleshots,
the ponies, the equestrians, and spoken to the

I92 “BUFFALO BILL."

terrible war-chiefs with whom Mr. Gladstone
had confabulated. Is not this all “ in the
papers ? ” If but all who see the Wild West
Show read this little work, and all who read
this see the show, we may hope thousands will
be contented.

END.

BRADBURY,

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